The Nation of Islam’s iconic dessert is still around, if you know where to look.
By Mike Sula
Article Reprint
The young man who met us at the front doors of Muhammad University of Islam wouldn’t let us in. He was polite yet firm when he told us they weren’t making bean pies that day. But my friends Peter Engler (eminent investigator of south-side culinary oddities) and Rob Lopata (occasional Reader contributor) had just toured the Nation of Islam’s neighboring Mosque Maryam a few days earlier, as part of the Chicago Architecture Foundation’s Open House Chicago. When they had asked about bean pies, their guide told them to come back during the week, when the university’s bakery would be in production.