If any dish could be described as blowsy, it's the lemon meringue pie; that overblown Dolly of desserts, all sweet bouffant meringue above a core acid enough to put young Jolene right off her game. There's something joyously vulgar about its showy charms, and its brief but brilliant flowering – it won't keep long enough to reward moderation, so gorge yourself before it's gone. Because of this, and because it seems to be something of an endangered species on menus these days (right up there with black forest gateau and île flottante), the LMP is a recipe well worth mastering. After all, who knows when you might be called upon to soothe a broken heart with such sugared succor?
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