I'll have to agree that the secret is the crust. My grandmother always said that the best for making pastries and crusts was bear lard. If she didn't have that, which she seldom did, she'd use pork lard.

She was always on the lookout for bears around her fruit trees in the fall and would call up to let us know when one had visited. We always had to save any fat we got from a bear for her to render into lard.

Cameron Hughes