Miniature Pecan Pies

A Southern Classic, On the Grand Canal

An occasional series in which staff members share a recipe we turn to time and time again.

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I wish I could claim pecan tassies as an old family recipe, but that distinction will have to go to someone else.

[See Recipe: Miniature Pecan Pies (Tassies)]

I first encountered this bite-size pecan pie in 1976 at a "pig-pickin' " party for Jimmy Carter's presidential campaign at Betty Talmadge's plantation house (rumored to be the model for Tara in "Gone With the Wind") south of Atlanta, in Lovejoy. I was there to write about the Carter campaign for the Atlanta Journal, but my most lasting memory is of the pecan tassies.

I grew up in Georgia and I love pecans. We got them by the bagful at Christmas and spent the holidays eating them fresh from the shell. But I have never liked pecan pie. It's too icky-sweet for me, regardless of the variations. And my family wasn't big on pies. My grandmother Lewis, who cooked on a wood stove all her life, turned out light-as-a-feather lemon-cheese cakes, coconut cakes and occasionally a sweet potato pie. (Bake the sweet potatoes, never boil them!)

The tiny pecan pie I first ate at Betty Talmadge's -- at that time she was the wife of Sen. Herman Talmadge of Georgia and owned a ham company -- was a revelation. It tasted of pecans, not Karo syrup. And there was just enough to be satisfying, never so much as to be cloying. I was hooked.

Fast-forward more than a decade to the early 1990s, when Gene, who is now my husband, and I began spending a month each year in Venice, usually around Thanksgiving. The American holiday falls within a week of the local festival of Santa Maria della Salute, when the whole city makes a pilgrimage to the votive church built on the Grand Canal in thanks for the lifting of the plague in the 17th century. Few Venetians seem to know about American Thanksgiving, and those we have tried to educate find it incredible that Americans have a holiday devoted to eating.

We wanted to share the holiday traditions with our Venetian friends, so the first year, I cooked an apple pie and took it to the waiters at Harry's Bar. For just a few minutes, all of them disappeared from the dining room, then returned, licking their lips. That was 16 years ago, and I've been baking for Thanksgiving there ever since.

I tried sweet potato pie one year, hauling canned sweet potatoes in my luggage. The potatoes were too much like Italy's zucca (pumpkin). Over the years, our Venetian Thanksgiving tradition morphed into pecan pie.

A friend had fallen in love with pecan pies during a tenure at Harry's in New York. Pecans are rarely grown in Europe, and he longed for his favorite American dessert.

But you can't easily find Karo syrup in Italy, either. I didn't mind hauling pecans from the States, but I never wanted to chance having a glass bottle of syrup break in my luggage. So for several years I compromised by using a modified version of the pecan tassie recipe to produce full-size pies, though never completely successfully. Several years ago I changed to pecan tassies, and every year I've had to bake more and more to satisfy expectations.

Neither brown cane sugar nor pecans nor vanilla extract is available in Italy, so I ship them ahead. This year the package weighed more than 10 pounds. Philadelphia Brand cream cheese is sold at the regular Italian grocery store, but it's formulated a little differently, and I like it better than the American version.

A day or two before Thanksgiving, I start baking, and I continue for two straight days. Gene often has to make a run for more flour or butter. Last year I baked eight batches (16 dozen), and this year the output will grow to more than 20 dozen.

I used to bake the tassies in mini-muffin tins (also brought from home) but lately have found that it's easier to push the dough into individual mini-tart pans. I use two interlocked cannoli molds as a tiny rolling pin and roll out the small balls of dough on the marble kitchen table. On Thanksgiving Day, we shall begin rounds early, delivering pecan tassies around town, explaining their origins and those of American Thanksgiving. We shall make deliveries to our favorite shopkeepers, to a Texan who owns a restaurant with her Venetian husband, and to the chefs, workers and owners of several of our favorite restaurants. Two dozen go to our friend who started the whole pecan pie craze, more to the workers at the hotel that manages the apartment where we stay.

Finally, at 8 p.m., we shall set off for Harry's for dinner with three or four dozen pecan tassies for the waiters and cooks. Shortly after we arrive, all the waiters will disappear from the dining room at once, only to return a few minutes later, licking their lips again this year. Most usually stop by our table as we are eating turkey with chestnuts to thank us for the treat.

Mario, one of the waiters, told us last year that he was very thankful for the pecan tassies but would like to be thankful for just one more.

This year, he will get an extra one.