Bird in the Pie

Thanks to a mini TV on JetBlue and a Thanksgiving episode of Alton Brown's Good Eats I learned about a little gadget called a pie bird. A short walk over to the nearby kitchen supply store and two days later a pie bird landed in my Spiced Apple and Pear Pie.

From Wiki...

A pie bird is a hollow ceramic device, traditionally from Europe and shaped like a bird. Pie birds are steam vents that have been placed in the center of fruit and meat pies during cooking since Victorian times.

They are used to prevent the pie from boiling over in the oven by allowing the steam created to escape from inside the pie. They also supported the pastry crust in the center of the pie, so that it does not sag in the middle, and are therefore also known as "crustholders".

It works.