Rhubarb Cream Pie

I got a request from someone at the Pie Party the other night to write more about Rhubarb. This is from the 1949 Culinary Arts Institute's 250 Superb Pies and Pastries, one of my favorite pamphlet cookbooks. The caption to this photo is:
If you start the meringue at the rim, you may want to leave the center of this rhubarb pie uncovered.

OK. Why? It looks nice, certainly, but perhaps the cook ran out of meringue? Perhaps she ate it? It's always fun to fill in the missing parts of these recipes and notes. Or perhaps I've been reading too many teen mysteries this week.

Rhubarb Cream Pie
1 cup sugar
3 tablespoons flour
2 1/2 cups stewed rhubarb
2 egg yolks, slightly beaten
1/3 cup orange juice
Grated rind of 1 orange
1 tablespoon butter
1 baked Pastry Shell
1 recipe Meringue I
Sift sugar and flour together; add to rhubarb and cook slowly until thickened, stirring constantly.  Stir into egg yolks, return to heat and cook 1 minute longer. Remove from heat, add orange juice, rind and butter.  Cool.  Pour into pastry shell, cover with meringue and bake.  Makes 1 (9-inch pie).

Meringue I
2 egg whites
4 tablespoons sugar
1/2 tsp. vanilla or other flavoring (Interesting)
Beat eggs until frothy.  Add sugar gradually and continue beating until stiff.  Add flavoring.  Pile on pie and bake in slow oven (325F) 15 - 18 minutes.

Oh dear. I found  Prune Chiffon Pie in this cookbook. Molly is going to have a busy summer. Speaking of Molly MacRae - I loaded and scheduled her four blog posts for the week coming up when I'll be away. They are extremely funny in her usual fashion and cover a cookbook buying trip. Readers here will very much enjoy this. If you are new to the blog Molly is my mystery author friend who loves weird vintage foods like prunes, mincemeat, etc. I have her guest blog on here every first Monday of the month. She came up with the Prune Off idea for this summer.