banana cream pie - top with whipped cream or meringue?

[Cynthia]

the thread on the California SF board is in dispute. What do you prefer...whipped cream or meringue on top of your banana cream pie?

[Janet]

Whipped cream. But I like meringue 'okay'. When I lived in NC, there was a place in Ahoskie called Bracey's which made the best meringue I've ever had. Couldn't leave there without pie :)

[Candy]

meringue and on pudding too

[dude]

Whipped.

Otherwise, it's a Banana Meringue pie!

[jschyun]

Amen dude!

You probably have not heard this, but long ago, in a land far, far away, possibly even Iowa, a baker once baked a bunch of lemon meringue and banana cream pies for a function. The forgetful baker left them all out on the counter and after whipping the cream and the meringue, couldn't remember which yellow pie fillings were lemon and which were banana. Not wanting to taste them for fear of spreading cooties, and being in a rush, she simply grabbed the nearest ones and started spooning on the meringue until it was used up and then slapped whipped cream on the remainder. Some of the guests at the function left in anger at seeing their beloved pies with the wrong topping. But the others, like particularly virulent strains of bacteria, stayed and made merry with the meringued banana cream pies and the whipped cream topped lemon pies, then went home and had babies who were genetically inclined to like these odd pies.

This legend is sadly, one of those intriguing stories that has never made the history books.

[tad_horse]

Meringue. That's the way my Iowa grandmother always made it.

[Jess]

No way. My Iowa grandmas (both of them) used whipped cream, then decorated it with slices of banana. They only put meringue on lemon meringue, and my one grandma also had a rhubarb pie she would put meringue on. FWIW I'm german/swiss/french Iowan, not Dutch.

Link: http://vfih.editthispage.com/2000/04/03

[tad_horse]

My Iowa grandmother DID put meringue on her banana cream pie. However, she would NEVER have put meringue on her rhubarb pie, which in her case was a double crust pie.

[Sir Gawain]

Whipped cream.

Not helping, are we?

[curiousbaker]

I didn't even know some people put meringue on banana cream pie. I find that...unnerving. It's banana cream pie, right? As in cream?

You forgot to ask the most important question in this sort of poll: where are you from? I wonder where the meringue thing is big. I'm guessing the South, where desserts tend to be sweeter, but there might be other parts of the country as well.

[rworange]

Thank you. I find it unnerving as well. Whipped Cream as the food gods intended.

Ok, this statement set me off (my apolagies to Chowhound for my SF rant and this one) ...

"A proper banana cream pie should be topped with meringue, not whipped cream, but that's problematic for restaurants."

Until then I had never heard of merangue on a BCP, but later recalled the now mediocre Marie Calendars will give you the option of either topping.

To address other issues in this thread

The cream is supposed to refer to the pie and not the topping.

Supposedly it is not regional, but I never saw anything but whipped cream in New England and a lot of my searches on the web seem to indicate this is a regional thing, like Southern. Maybe in the hotter climate, whipped cream doesn't do as well.

It was pointed out that the meringue was traditional because the leftover egg whites from the custard fillings were used in olden days by thrifty cooks for the meringue.

Now I can buy the word traditional, but it was the word 'proper' that set me off. I say that even if it WAS traditional, people saw the error of their ways and corrected it.

Also a search of my mom's cookbooks through the 1930's turned up no metion of anything BUT whipped cream. I did learn that until the advent of refrigeration, cream pies were more like cakes as in Boston Cream pie (Campbell cookbook as source, so you know, take that for what you will).

You don't see anyone topping Boston Cream Pie with meringue to use up those egg whites, eh? (shudder, shudder, shudder). There are other uses for egg whites.

In my out of control search, I did find a recipe that suggested using BOTH meringue AND whipped cream ... eeewwww.

Also it was suggested that the reason restuarnts put whipped cream on BCP because "Meringue is problematic for restaurants because if not made perfectly it beads and weeps."

I say hooey. You don't see Lemon pie with whipped cream often. The same places make Lemon Meringue as make BCP with the appropriate toppings. BTW, RL nice regional save with comments about Walker's pies. Made me chuckle.

Lemon meringue pie is wrong with whipped cream. The lemon needs that lighter texture. Just as BCP needs the dense,creamy decadence of whipped cream.

Don't even get me started on proper clam chowder.

Help me pay for wasting bandwidth on this ....

Link: http://chowhound.safeshopper.com/21/c...

[Debbie W.]

I'm pretty sure that the default for the banana cream pie topping at Marie Callendar's is meringue - at least here in So Cal - or at least it used to be. But you can have them remove the meringue and add whipped cream, which is what I always do should I find myself eating banana cream pie at M.C.'s which I'll admit does happen occasionally. Inevitably little traces of the removed meringue remain on the pie.

Count me squarely in the whipped cream camp.

Meringue generally doesn't do anything for me in any case, not just in the case of banana cream pie.

Even at the highly regarded Pie'N'Burger in Pasadena, less than two weeks ago, I had them remove the meringue from my banana cream pie and add whipped cream. (Ooh, and it was really good.) I still don't understand why meringue would ever make an appearance on banana cream pie.

[chowgal]

whipped. never heard of meringue. (i am from northeast: grew up Western NY; educated Boston; live/work NYC)

[Dave Feldman]

This subject has come up at least ten times on the Los Angeles board, too. Pie 'n Burger, in Pasadena, which has (arguably) the best b.c.p. in the SoCal area, tops its custard with meringue. For a price, PnB will scrape off the meringue and put on whipped cream.

I think meringue is an awful accompaniment to a banana custard.

[mt]

growing up in Florida I had butterscotch pie with meringue, key lime with meringue, key lime with whipped cream and, I think, banana coconut cream pie with meringue.

am I wrong in thinking that pies with curd like fillings require a more lighter topping like meringue?

though somehow merigue to me seems lighter than whipped cream and would be a nice counter point to pudding type fillings.

On strawberry berry pie - whipped cream of course.

and of course when you say whipped cream you mean cream that's been whipped - not cool whip or the stuff that comes out of a can, right?

[Jon36]

"The Little Pie Company of NYC" makes their version with whipped cream. My hunch is that a citrus-based pie might caught a whipped-cream topping to curdle and/or separate, where a meringue topping holds up so well. On the other hand, the texture and smooth flavor of bananas calls out for whipped cream IMO, meringue might do in hot weather but not as a rule. "Chacun a son gout" of course, if you like the meringue, more power to you! :)