For this recipe, I’ve used an old-fashioned pie bird. Why? Well, I’ve become a bit obsessed with collecting them, but they’re also the perfect tool to get ventilation through the whole pie.

In the 1950s, meals on The Commons (Hill Street) sometimes included dishes with intriguing names, among them Apple Pan Dowdy, Sour Cream Pie, and Prune Whip. My grandmother, who was a “from scratch” ...