Hubig's pies mean more than just dessert to New Orleanians | NOLA ...

On Thursday, when Sherwood Collins stopped into Harry's Ace Hardware on Gen. Meyer's and saw the Hubig's pie display, he did what comes naturally: He picked out a blueberry one and took a bite.

"Very glad I did!" Collin said in an email Friday morning that included a photo of the smiling Collins family dressed as Hubig's pies for Mardi Gras 2011.

"I'm pregnant in this photo, so there's one in the oven," his wife Amy Boyle Collins said. "My husband fancied himself the 'pie-maker'! So glad the family is vowing to come back."

New Orleanians were ready to rally for the venerated bakery that burned to the ground in a five-alarm fire early Friday morning.

Company Burger chef/owner Adam Biederman woke up late after a Tales of the Cocktail event to find the news on Twitter.

"I was blown away. It's horrible. I don't really know how to process it," said Biederman, a New Orleans native. Hubig's Pies have "always been there, and it will be weird to go into a gas station or something and not see it there. Who doesn't like a Hubig's?"

If the community needs to reach out to help the company get back on their feet, "I'm behind it," he added. The reason the Hubig's is amazing, Biederman said, is "They don't mess around. They don't change. They've done it their way. They still make pie dough the way they want."

When he opened his restaurant on Freret Street, "We actually thought of trying to serve a Hubig's in some fun way... maybe there's a place for them now when they come back."

In a way, that would be life imitating art. The very first episode of HBO's "Treme," set in post-Katrina New Orleans, featured chef Janette DeSautel taking a Hubig's pie out of her purse, slapping it on a plate and telling her sous-chef to "Drizzle something on it." In an open letter to New Orleanians, producer David Simon was careful to note in a letter to viewers that it was a "magic Hubig's pie," because the episode depicted a time before?the pie company reopened in January, 2006.

In 2006 just before the reopening, operations manager Drew Ramsey said that the Sunday before the storm made landfall, the company baked its usual 10,000 pies, because if the storm had missed the region, it would have needed them for Monday delivery. After the storm, Ramsey and his pregnant wife drove around handing out the pies to public safety workers and people waiting for help, as the company did after Hurricanes Betsy and Camille.

"We took them to wherever anybody looked hungry, and I pulled up and handed them out," said Ramsey at the time. "When the water came up, we drove around the sliver by the river."

Ramsey auctioned off a specially made wooden case autographed by local celebrities and filled with post-Katrina pies, with proceeds going to recovery efforts.

The company has had a lasting relationship with first-responders. During Carnival, they are known for handing out pies along parade routes to police working the long hours. Ramsey tells a story that his dad was able to get back into New Orleans after Katrina without a pass, just his T-shirt depicting Savory Simon. An NOPD officer asked him, "Are you the man who gives us the pies?" He was waved through the lines.

Friday morning, New Orleans Fire Superintendent Charles Parent said the Fire Department also is a staunch supporter of Hubig's.

"Hubig's Pies is very special to us," Parent said. "They're one of the companies that came in after the storm that gave free pies to the fireman. One of the firemen said we put the fire out with our tears."

The neighborhood needs the factory, he said.

"They really are a cornerstone of this area."

A German baker founded a chain of bakeries in the southeastern United States, and all but the New Orleans one failed during the Depression. Ramsey's grandfather owned part of the bakery, and taught the trade to his son, father of Drew Ramsey. The factory was been in the now-destroyed Faubourg Marigny building since 1922.

Long before the word "locavore" was dreamed up, Hubig's was making seasonal pies with local fruit.

Corbin Evans, executive chef of the Inn at Ole Miss in Oxford, Miss., lived down the street from Hubig's when he returned to New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina.

"I remember looking forward to the new flavors coming out, anticipating the change to sweet potato and getting the different flavors you couldn't get year-round," Evans said. He also remembers "the epiphany of the first time I heated one up, how crazy good they are."

The baking equipment included some purchased from McKenzie's when that operation went out business, Ramsey said in 2011. That was the year Hubig's introduced miniature king cakes in an effort to offset a dip in sales when Carnival appetites turned away from pies. The long-time mascot, Savory Simon, was pictured wearing a jester outfit on the king cakes.

A small Savory Simon mascot was available to rent for weddings and parties, too. For the past few years, Hubig's has had a popular custom-stamping business, putting names and slogans on the wrappers, for brides and party-givers who order their favorite flavors as guest favors.

When Anthony Bayer and Stephanie Becnel got married at St. Mary's church in the French Quarter in March, 2010, they gave guests pies stamped with their names and their wedding date.

"I am originally from St. Louis and we had a lot of out of town guests and wanted them to have a real New Orleans experience," Bayer said. "We included Hubig's pies as a to-go snack because Hubig's is authentic NOLA. Of course the pies all disappeared rather quickly. Fortunately, we set some aside for ourselves before the event."

"For our wedding just after the storm, we included a Hubig's Pie in every goodie bag for out-of-town guests," wrote Charles Chauff in an email. "The factory wouldn't sell them to us a few days ahead of time, however, insisting they be bought fresh that Friday morning."

This fall, a new coffee-table book, "Meanwhile Back at Cafe Du Monde...Life Stories About Food" by Peggy Sweeney-McDonald, has? two pages devoted to photos and a monologue by Ramsey presented in 2010 and 2011 for the series of shows of the same name based on culinary memories and themes, created and produced by Sweeney-McDonald. These two paragraphs, used by permission of Pelican Publishing Company, Inc., bookend his essay.

"I am a simple man. I enjoy the simple pleasures in life. I like comfort foods. I make pies five days a week out of sugar, flour, fruit, and fat -- the good 'ol fat -- LARD. My father taught me to make them, and his father taught him. The same machines have been used to make these pies in the same factory for about a century. Some of the employees have worked for Hubig's for 50 years. Their spouses work along side them, and their grown kids."

"A simple man, making simple pies, who prefers when the term Blackberry is used to describe a seasonal Hubig's pie flavor. A simple man who was amazed and astonished that on our first trip back down the parade route in 2006, that people clapped, cheered and cried when they saw us handing out our little fried pies."

On Friday, when asked what the outpouring of community support meant to him, Ramsey said it was "touching.

"It's much appreciated. I mean, really, that's touching. We try to be a very participatory member of the community. We buy locally almost on a religious basis, we try to give pies to all the churches and Boy Scout groups in town. ... We're 100 years old, and we'll be back."

Food editor Judy Walker can be reached at jwalker@timespicayune.com? or 504.826.3485. Staff writer Danny Monteverde contributed to this story.

Source: http://www.nola.com/food/index.ssf/2012/07/hubigs_pie_are_more_than_a_des.html

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