Dear Editor,
I spent about 10 years with the Clark family (near Castaway Island) in the 1970s, and at least once a month we’d head out for a Sunday lunch at the old Tallassee Hotel. While everything was amazing and delicious, the lemon icebox pie was the star of the show for me.
Now, quite a few years later, I’d like to try to recreate that experience by trying to make the pie myself, but I have had no luck finding a reliable recipe for it. I’m writing to you in the hopes you, or someone you know, might have a lead on that wonderful bit of gastronomy.
I’m contacting you folks in particular because, as a former community news editor myself (Shades Valley Sun, near Birmingham, also 1970s), I know how local newspeople seem to know everyone down to the garden club presidents, and those who might have that kind of local knowledge.
There are oodles of recipes on Google but none seem to hit the Tallassee Hotel mark precisely. I mean, most call for vanilla wafers for the crust, but I seem to remember graham cracker flavor instead (OK, it was 40 years ago, but still); and I really don’t think there was cream cheese in there, although Southern Living’s recipe calls for it. And so on.
So, I’m hoping someone in your market area or readers can reach back into a file box somewhere and say, “This is it!”
Brian Croswhite
Pembroke Pines, Florida
