Pies and Tarts

As a favored dish of the English, pies were baked in America as soon as the early settlers set up housekeeping on dry land. Beyond mere preference, however, there was a practical reason for making pies, especially in the harsh and primitive conditions endured by the first colonists. A piecrust used less flour than bread and did not require anything as complicated as a brick oven for baking. More important, though, was how pies could stretch even the most meager provisions into sustaining a few more hungry mouths.