The History of Pie

Ancient History

The first pies appeared around 9500 BC, in the Egyptian Neolithic period or New Stone Age. Early pies were in the form of flat, round or freeform crusty cakes consisting of a crust of ground oats, wheat, rye, or barley containing honey as a treat inside. These galettes developed into a form of early sweet pastry or desserts, evidence of which can be found on the tomb walls of the Pharaoh Ramesses II, who ruled from 1304 to 1237 BC, located in the Valley of the Kings. Sometime around 1700 BC, a recipe for a bird pie was written on a tablet in Sumer. (See recipe #1 from the YBC 8958 tablet.)

Ancient Greeks are believed to have originated pie pastry. In the plays of Aristophanes (5th century BC) there are mentions of sweetmeats including small pastries filled with fruit. Nothing is known of the actual pastry used, but the Greeks certainly recognized the trade of pastry-cook as distinct from that of baker. The Romans made a plain pastry of flour, oil, and water to cover meats and fowls which were baked, thus keeping in the juices. A richer pastry, intended to be eaten, was used to make small pasties containing eggs or little birds which were among the minor items served at banquets. Because the first pies of the Middle East and other classical civilizations were made from olive oil, the crust didn’t have the familiar flakiness and heft of the classic pie crusts that we know today.

The 1st century Roman cookbook Apicius makes various mentions of recipes which involve a pie case. The pastry, made from flour, suet (beef fat), eggs, and other ingredients, was dense and hard. During Roman times (5th C. BC – 6th C. AD), and later in the Middle Ages in Europe, pastry was used as a method of keeping meats and other savory fillings moist during cooking, and also as a way in which to partially hermetically seal the filling in order to keep it from spoiling. By 160 BC, Roman statesman Marcus Porcius Cato (234-149 BC) who wrote De Agri Cultura, notes the recipe for the most popular pie/cake called Placenta. He also gives a recipe for Libum, which was more like a modern day cheesecake on a pastry base, and was often used as an offering to the gods. With the development of the Roman Empire and its efficient road transport, pie cooking spread throughout Europe.

The Middle Ages

In medieval England, they were called pyes, and instead of being predominantly sweet, they were most often filled with meat — beef, lamb, wild duck, magpie pigeon — spiced with pepper, currants or dates. The first reference to "pyes" as food items appeared in England (in a Latin context) as early as the 12th century, but no unequivocal reference to the item with which the article is concerned is attested until the 14th century (Oxford English Dictionary sb pie).

Medieval cooks had restricted access to ovens due to their costs of construction and need for abundant supplies of fuel. Pies could be easily cooked over an open fire, while partnering with a baker allowed them to cook the filling inside their own locally defined casing. The earliest pie-like recipes refer to coffyns (the word actually used for a basket or box), with straight sealed sides and a top; open top pies were referred to as traps. This may also be the reason why early recipes focus on the filling over the surrounding case, with the partnership development leading to the use of reusable earthenware pie cases which reduced the use of expensive flour.

Song birds at the time were a fine delicacy, and protected by Royal Law. At the coronation of eight-year old English King Henry VI (1422–1461) in 1429, "Partryche and Pecock enhackyll" pie was served, consisting of cooked peacock mounted in its skin on a peacock filled pie. Cooked birds were frequently placed by European royal cooks on top of a large pie to identify its contents, leading to its later adaptation in pre-Victorian times as a porcelain ornament to release of steam and identify a good pie.

1381 - 14th century pies were very different from today's pie, as they didn't contain sugar and the pastry (coffins) generally were not meant to be eaten. The coffins were meant to be used as a container only. Sugar during the 14th century was available, but was very scarce and extremely expensive.

The following very early apple pie recipe comes by way of The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Forme of Cury, by Samuel Pegge. This cookbook was originally compiled about 1390 A.D. by the master cooks of King Richard II, presented afterwards to Queen Elizabeth, by Edward Lord Stafford. According to historians, this is one of the first records of the modern apple pie.

XXIII. For To Make Tartys in Applis

Tak gode Applys and gode Spycis and Figys and reyfons and Perys and wan they are wel ybrayed co-lourd wyth Safron wel and do yt in a cofyn and do yt forth to bake well.

1545 - Sugar was more readily available in the 16th century and the pastry (coffins) were meant to be eaten.

A cookbook from the mid 16th century that also includes some account of domestic life, cookery and feasts in Tudor days, called A Proper newe Booke of Cokerye (declarynge what maner of meates be beste in season, for al times in the yere, and how they ought to be dressed, and  serued at the table, bothe for fleshe dayes, and fyshe dayes), has a recipe for an apple pie.

To make pies of greene Apples.

Take your Apples and pare them cleane, and core them as ye wil a quince then make your coffin after this man- ner, take a litle fayre water, and halfe a fishe of butter, and a litle Saffron, and set all this upon a chafindyshe, tyll it bee hote, than temper your flower with this sayd licour, and the white of two egges, & also make your coffin and season your Apples with Cinamon, Ginger and Sugar inough. Then put them into your coffin, and bake them.

In North America . . .

English colonists brought their recipes for pie with them to the New World. Other immigrants, such as the French, the Dutch, and the Scandinavians, also brought their pastry-making techniques and traditions with them to America. In the early years of our country, pie was a way in which to make precious ingredients last longer as pie crust used less flour than a loaf of bread, and could be filled with ingredients, such as dried apples, that could be kept over winter. But pie eventually also became a way in which to showcase local ingredients as well as a tribute to the immigrant’s homelands. Cream and cheese pies became popular in the northern Midwest, where dairy farms abounded; pecan pie became a staple in the South and Southwest where nut trees proliferated; fresh berry pies were a natural in the upper Midwest made by Scandinavian immigrants, and lime pie was the order of the day in Florida, where the famous key limes once grew plentifully.

American pies started out with a suet or lard crust. Crisco, a popular brand of vegetable shortening, was invented in the United States in 1911 and vegetable shortening soon became the fat of choice for creating pie crusts, as lard went out of fashion. Butter, being quite a bit more expensive than vegetable shortening, was preferred for taste, but not for the shortness or tenderness of the crust it creates.

As pie took root in North America, the types of sweet pie available effectively exploded. An American cookbook from 1796 listed only 3 sweet pies (apple pie, currant pie, and buttered apple pie), while a cookbook from late 1800s listed 8 types of sweet pie (grandmother’s apple pie, dried-apple pie, lemon pie, sweet potato pie, pumpkin pie, cherry and berry pie, custard pie, mincemeat pie), but a cookbook from the 1940s lists a whopping 65 different pie recipes! Different types of pie include:

- chiffon pies: delicate creations usually made with gelatin and egg whites

- cream pies: usually made with a custard or pudding filling

- ice box pies: made with ice cream, whipped cream, or sweetened condensed milk, with many variations

- meringue pies: usually made with a gelatin-fruit combination filling, topped with whipped egg whites and baked briefly in a hot oven

- fruit pies of all varieties; chocolate pies; nut pies

The imagination of American pie bakers is virtually limitless.

As American as Apple Pie . . .

Pumpkin pie, an American Thanksgiving staple, originated from English recipes for “tartstuff”, made from boiled and spiced fruit. Contrary to popular belief, pumpkin pie was not served at the first Pilgrim Thanksgiving, and did not become common at our Thanksgiving tables until the early 1800s. Pumpkin pie today is often made with sweetened condensed milk, but old-fashioned recipes for the pie use a custard base to which pureed pumpkin is added.

Pumpkin pie may be an American Thanksgiving tradition, but few foods evoke Americana more than the American apple pie. Interestingly, apples are not native to America and they had to be imported originally from Europe. When the English colonists arrived in North America they found only crab apples. As the US became the world’s most productive apple-growing country, apple pies grew in popularity and eventually came to epitomize an American way of life. A few theories abound as to the popularity of apple pie in the US, especially given the creation of other types of sweet pies. One of the more colorful theories implicates teetotalers from the colonial era when apples were grown for hard cider. As the temperance movement took hold at the turn of the last century, a new use for apples had to be found, and apple-based desserts gained in popularity. The phrase “As American as Apple pie” is thought to have been invented by Abraham Lincoln during the Civil War.

1796 - The 1796 cookbook called American Cookery, by Amelia Simmons had two recipes for apple pie and one recipe for Marlborough pudding:

Apple Pie - Stew and ftrain the apples, to every three pints, grate the peel of a frefh lemon, add cinnamon, mace, rofe-water and fugar to yourtafte - and bake in pafte No. 3.

A Buttered Apple Pie - Pare, quarter and core tart apples, lay in pafte No.3, cover with the fame; bake half an hour, when drawn, gently raise the top cruft, add fugar, butter, cinnamon, mace, wine or rosf-water.

Marlborough Pudding - Take 12 fpoons of ftewed apples, 12 of wine, 12 of fugar, 12 of melted buttter, and 12 of beaten eggs, a little cream, fpice to your tafte; lay in pafte No. 3, in a deep difh; bake one hour and a quarter.

Apple Pie a la Mode– In the United States, pie a la mode refers to pie (usually apple pie) served with a scoop of ice cream (usually vanilla) on top.

1890s - According to the historians of the Cambridge Hotel in Washington County New York, Professor Charles Watson Townsend, dined regularly at the Cambridge Hotel during the mid 1890's. He often ordered ice cream with his apple pie. Mrs. Berry Hall, a diner seated next to him, asked what it was called. He said it didn’t have a name, and she promptly dubbed it Pie a la mode. Townsend liked the name so much he asked for it each day by that name. When Townsend visited the famous Delmonico Restaurant in New York City, he asked for pie a la mode. When the waiter proclaimed he never heard of it, Townsend chastised him and the manager, and was quoted as saying; "Do you mean to tell me that so famous an eating place as Delmonico's has never heard of Pie a la Mode, when the Hotel Cambridge, up in the village of Cambridge, NY serves it every day? Call the manager at once, I demand as good serve here as I get in Cambridge." The following day it became a regular at Delmonico and a resulting story in the New York Sun (a reporter was listening to the whole conversation) made it a country favorite with the publicity that ensued.

Savory Pies

From the earliest history of pie, the pastry has been filled with savory fare, from mutton to beef, from fish to porpoise (yes, porpoise – it was considered a fish and therefore acceptable to eat on Fridays in Catholic Europe), and in this country, from chicken to cheese. Savory pies (filled with savory ingredients such as meat, rather than sweet ingredients such as fruit) are generally called “pot pies” in the US.

Like sweet pies, savory pies also reflect the local surroundings of the countries and regions from which they came. Quiche is a French term which originally comes from the Lorraine region of France, meaning a savory pie filled with egg and cream. Current quiche Lorraine recipes usually contain egg, cheese, cream, and bacon or ham. Quiche came into vogue in the US in the 1980s, as chefs began to use quiche as a method of highlighting various ingredients. Shepherd’s pie, another common savory pie, is traditionally made with lamb or mutton (hence the name, “shepherd’s pie”) and is topped with mashed potatoes in lieu of a top pie crust. The dish originated in the early 19th Century in northern England or Scotland, where sheep were plentiful. Cottage pie is similar to Shepherd’s pie, but is usually made with beef instead of lamb or mutton.

The pies of Europe’s lower classes would have been filled with less august ingredients, such as kidneys, hearts, and tongue. Also known as “humbles,” animal innards used in pies gave rise to the term “Humble pie.”

Mincemeat pie, now a meatless staple of the Thanksgiving dessert table, once contained – you guessed it – minced meat (usually beef), along with beef fat (suet), candied citrus peels, apples, and various spices. According to the 1877 Ohio cookbook, The Buckeye Cookbook, mince pies came into “disrepute” because their preparation was usually left up to servants who were unable to prepare the rather complicated pie properly. The same cookbook says: “Tact, wisdom, judgment, knowledge, and experience all go into the proper construction of a genuine mince pie, to say nothing of kindness of heart and liberality of disposition.” American cooks clearly have always taken their pie baking seriously!

Chicken pot pie, another North American savory pie favorite, is usually filled with a cream-and-chicken based mixture, and topped with a savory pastry crust. The chicken pot pie was the first frozen pot pie available in the US, developed by the Swanson company in 1951 (and as the saying goes, the rest is history for TV dinners and frozen convenience foods.). Other common American savory pies include pork pie (a specialty of southern Massachusetts) and beef pot pie, which generally contains a mixture of beef and vegetables, and is similar to cottage pie, but, like chicken pot pie, is topped with a savory pastry crust. Amelia Simmons’ 1796 cookbook, American Cookery, lists other savory pies that have since fallen out of fashion, such as tongue pie, a savory-sweet concoction made with ox tongue, apples, and sugar; grass-fed ox foot pie; and something called a “sea pie” made with pigeons, veal, and pork (gee, I can’t imagine why these aren’t on our top 10 list).

Today, the most common savory “pie” is pizza, whichoriginated, of course, in Italy, and was brought to the east coast of the US by Italian immigrants in the late 19th Century. Despite its tough sell to Americans in the early 20th century, pizza has become $20 billion industry in the US. According to studies, 93 percent of Americans eat a slice at least once a month, nearly 70 percent of Super Bowl viewers eat pizza while watching the game, and the average American puts away about 23 pounds a year. “mama, mia! That’s a lotta pizza”

Like soup, just about every culture developed its own version of savory pie, most of which were based on whatever type of meat, fish, or cheese was lying around. Latin America, for example, is famous for empanadas, which originated in their colonizer Portugal.

India is famed for samosas. Britains crave steak and kidney pie. The Middle East has sfiha, Mexico churns out tons of tamales, and Italy has blessed us with calzones and pizza.

The end of pie as we know it . . .

As nutritional fads touting a low carbohydrate, high protein diet became popular in the latter half of the 19th Century (does that sound familiar?), and as more and more women started entering the workforce, pies began to diminish in popularity in North America.

The diminishment of pie’s place in America seems to also coincide with the move from rural to urban environments as the Industrial Revolution took hold in North America. The holdouts of pie baking stayed with farm wives, where pie remained a way in which to showcase local ingredients, as well as techniques of pie cookery. Many farm wives competed (and still do) in pie bake-offs at County and State fairs and other agricultural showcases.

“Homemade” pies will never leave the American dessert table. Although the “completely from scratch” baking of earlier generations is all but gone, the local grocery offers pie baking convenience options ranging from using a prepared crust but making your own filling, to purchasing a frozen pie ready for the oven. Regardless of the preparation, the end result is the same . . . a freshly baked pie hot out of the oven, ready to be served in a Slice of Life.