Shoo-Fly Pie

This sugar pie topped with streusel is the canonical dessert of Pennsylvania Dutch cuisine. Thrifty molasses pies hark back to English treacle tarts, and the crumb topping is from German streuselkuchen, translated as “crumb cake” in Pennsylvania manuscripts since at least the 1860s. Despite the obvious folk etymology, the “shoo-fly” name is probably no older than the 1870s, when “shoo fly” was what (English-speaking) baseball players said instead of swearing, when they missed a play. The phrase might have become attached to a pie that was so easy to make that it was a kind of “aw shucks” pie.