Mississippi Mud Pie

The week after Mama's funeral, and the house is full of the particular silence that death creates — not the silence of absence but the silence of presence removed, the silence that has weight and shape and that occupies the rooms the way Mama occupied them: completely, immovably, the silence taking up the space that the humming used to fill. The humming is gone. The woman is gone. The silence is what remains.

Carrie stayed for two weeks after the funeral. She held me in the kitchen on the night after the burial and we cried together over a pot of she-crab soup that I had made because I did not know what else to do, and the not-knowing-what-else-to-do was the grief, and the grief was the soup, and the soup was the crying, and the crying was the two of us in the kitchen where Mama sat for five years and that Mama will never sit in again.

Joy does not fully understand. I visited her on Saturday and brought peach cobbler, and Joy ate it and said, "Where is Mama?" and I said, "Mama is gone, Joy," and Joy said, "Where did she go?" and I said, "She went to be with Daddy," which is what you say to a woman who understands destinations but not departures, and Joy said, "Is she coming back?" and I said, "No, Joy. She isn't coming back." And Joy said, "Oh." And then she ate more cobbler. And the eating was the processing, and the processing was the cobbler, and the cobbler was the grief expressed as appetite, which is Joy's way of holding what the rest of us hold in tears.

Robert has been in the workshop every day since the funeral. Not building — just being. Sitting in the workshop with the wood and the tools and the sawdust, the way a man sits in a room that has been his sanctuary and that now holds the additional burden of a grief he does not know how to express except through building, and the building has not yet begun because the grief must be sat with first.

I made she-crab soup on Sunday. The first Sunday without Mama in the kitchen. The kitchen was the same. The stove was the same. The cast-iron skillet was the same. And Mama was not the same, because Mama was not here, and the not-here was the only thing different, and the different was everything.

I have been thinking about the cobbler I brought Joy — the way she ate it without asking why, the way the eating was its own kind of answer — and I realized that some grief lives in sweetness, in the dense and unhurried richness of a dessert that does not require you to explain yourself. Mississippi Mud Pie is what I made the following Sunday, after the she-crab soup and the crying and the workshop and the silence. It is a Southern thing, heavy and honest, and it sat on Mama’s counter the way Mama used to sit — completely, asking nothing, simply there.

Prep Time: 20 min | Cook Time: 35 min | Total Time: 55 min + chilling | Servings: 10

Ingredients

1 package (14.3 oz) chocolate sandwich cookies, finely crushed
6 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted
1/2 cup unsalted butter (1 stick)
4 oz bittersweet chocolate, coarsely chopped
1 cup granulated sugar
1/4 cup packed brown sugar
3 large eggs plus 1 egg yolk
2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
1/2 cup all-purpose flour
1/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1/2 teaspoon fine salt
1 1/2 cups mini marshmallows
1/2 cup chopped pecans or walnuts
Vanilla ice cream or whipped cream, for serving

Instructions

Make the crust. Preheat oven to 350°F. Stir together the crushed cookies and 6 tablespoons melted butter until the mixture resembles wet sand. Press firmly and evenly into the bottom and up the sides of a 9-inch deep-dish pie plate. Bake for 10 minutes, then set aside to cool slightly.
Melt chocolate and butter. In a medium saucepan over low heat, melt the 1/2 cup butter and chopped bittersweet chocolate together, stirring constantly until smooth. Remove from heat and let cool for 5 minutes.
Mix the filling. Whisk the granulated sugar and brown sugar into the chocolate mixture. Add the eggs, egg yolk, and vanilla, whisking until fully combined. Sift in the flour, cocoa powder, and salt, and fold gently until no dry streaks remain — do not overmix.
Fill and bake. Pour the filling into the prepared crust. Bake at 350°F for 22–25 minutes, until the edges are set but the center still has a slight tremble. Do not overbake.
Add the topping. Remove the pie from the oven and immediately scatter mini marshmallows and chopped pecans evenly over the top. Return to the oven for 3–4 minutes, until the marshmallows are puffed and lightly golden at the edges.
Cool and chill. Allow the pie to cool completely at room temperature, at least 1 hour, then refrigerate for a minimum of 2 hours before slicing. The filling will set to a dense, fudgy consistency.
Serve. Slice with a warm knife and serve with a generous scoop of vanilla ice cream or a dollop of whipped cream.

Nutrition (per serving)

Mississippi Mud Pie — The Sweetness We Reach For When Words Run Out