Photo of Interest: winner winner chicken dinner

By Paul Carnahan

Cool fall breezes bring colorful foliage, ripe apples, fields of pumpkins, and chicken pie suppers to Vermont. Photographer Edmund H. Royce of St. Albans captured the hungry diners at this community supper at the Georgia Plain Baptist Church in 1945.

The Vermont chicken pie probably descends from traditional British meat pies. Although originally made with British-style short pastry, in the late 19th century, biscuit dough was introduced. It is this biscuit crust that distinguishes the Vermont chicken pie from other New England "potpies,” said Molly Turner in a 2001 issue of Saveur.  According to Turner, the New England potpies, "may be made with puff pastry and, unlike the Vermont rendition, usually include vegetables in the gravy.”

Edmund H. "Bug" Royce (1883-1967), a well-known St. Albans photographer during the 1930s-50s, captured this image Descended from a long line of Vermonters, Royce expressed his love of Vermont history through photography.  He collaborated with Herbert Wheaton Congdon on the book The Covered Bridge (1941). A 1951 show in Grand Central Station titled "The Vermont Scene" was sponsored by Eastman Kodak Company and was a highlight of Royce's career. A collection of his photographs can be seen online at Digital Vermont.  

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