In Vermont, the Leaves Are Falling And the Chicken Pies Are Calling

The choice of chicken pie -- rather than, say, roast pork or mac and cheese -- probably evolved from the days when every farmer's wife kept a flock for the household. An unproductive hen or rambunctious rooster often went into a chicken pie for the family's Sunday dinner or the church supper.

I arrived in Richmond too early for supper -- a couple of months too early. But after a meeting with volunteers at the Congregational Church, the hospitable Heath Riggs and his wife, Harriet, took me home for lunch and a scaled-down sample of the dish that won the Vermont Chamber of Commerce's praise.

Harriet Riggs's chicken pie explained everything. It was made from the traditional Richmond recipe, little changed from the fare that Vermont farmers' wives served in the 1800s. ("One or two days before the supper, start with 2 fowls, about six pounds each . . . ." )

Remembering my mother's farmhouse meals, I tucked into a plate of succulent chicken bathed in rich gravy and topped with big, bumpy biscuits. Those biscuits are made not with vegetable shortening, margarine or even butter. The shortening is chicken fat skimmed from the pot, producing a biscuit as flaky as Mount Mansfield in January.

As was I, guests at the October supper are allowed seconds on biscuits. "I know one fellow who ate four," Heath Riggs recalled in awe.

Richmond was one of five chicken pie supper sites I visited this summer for a preview of autumn events. Four of these towns are all within 25 miles of one another, and each is about five miles off Interstate 89, a highway that offers glorious views of Vermont's featherbed topography at nearly every mile. The fifth, Groton, is tucked into the heavily forested region known as the Northeast Kingdom, about 25 miles east of Montpelier.

Reservations are essential, but you won't need a credit card number to secure a place. These church people have faith that if you've promised to come, you'll be there.

Carol McCabe last wrote about New York's Library Hotel for Travel.