Pastry in America: A Brief Catalog of American Pies

Among the many varieties of pies are those made from New World foods that are uniquely part of the American repertoire, such as pumpkin, squash, sweet potato, green tomato, pecan, blueberry, and cranberry. Florida’s key limes make a revered curd filling. Other pies that have evolved in decidedly American versions include creams (most popularly coconut, banana, and chocolate) and their cousins, the chiffons (creams or fruit curds lightened with whipped egg whites); rhubarb (sometimes called “pie plant” and often combined with strawberries); shoo-fly, crumb, and gravel (Pennsylvania Dutch treats made with molasses, brown sugar, and cake or cookie crumbs); black bottom and Mississippi mud (chocolate custard layered with rum custard or cream cheese); vinegar and cider (nineteenth-century specialties from the Midwest and New England, respectively, in which egg custards were flavored with a healthy dose of vinegar or cider, used because of the expense of transporting lemons to the hinterland); and President Tyler pie, the most patriotically named of the so-called transparent pies, made from a high proportion of sugar or corn syrup, butter, and eggs baked to a translucent gel. Confederate Jefferson Davis pie is a sweetened, spiced custard, sometimes containing dried fruits and nuts, lightened with or covered by meringue. Similar to the South’s beloved chess pie, both have discernible British ancestors, although the thick layer of meringue topping is an American tradition. Buttermilk also was thickened into custard and baked in crust.