They’re simple, they’re American and come Thanksgiving, everybody saves room for them. But the pies we know today are a fairly recent addition to a history that goes back as long as mankind has had dough to bake into a crust and stuff to put inside it. 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. Historians trace pie’s initial origins to the Greeks, who are thought to be the originators of the pastry shell, which they made by combining water and flour. The wealthy Romans used many different kinds of meats — even mussels and other types of seafood — in their pies. Meat pies were also often part of Roman dessert courses, or secundae mensea. Cato the Younger recorded the popularity of this sweet course, and a cheesecake-like dish called Placenta, in his treatise De Agricultura.
Contrary to grade school theater productions across the United States, there was no modern-day pie — pumpkin, pecan or otherwise — at the first Thanksgiving celebration in 1621. Pilgrims brought English-style, meat-based recipes with them to the colonies. While pumpkin pie, which is first recorded in a cookbook in 1675, originated from British spiced and boiled squash, it was not popularized in America until the early 1800s. Historians don’t know all the dishes the Pilgrims served in the first Thanksgiving feast, but primary documents indicate that pilgrims cooked with fowl and venison — and it’s not unlikely that some of that meat found its way between sheets of dough at some point. The colonists cooked many a pie: because of their crusty tops, pies acted as a means to preserve food, and were often used to keep the filling fresh during the winter months. And they didn’t make bland pies, either: documents show that the Pilgrims used dried fruit, cinnamon, pepper and nutmeg to season their meats. Further, as the colonies spread out, the pie’s role as a means to showcase local ingredients took hold and with it came a proliferation of new, sweet pies. A cookbook from 1796 listed only three types of sweet pies; a cookbook written in the late 1800s featured 8 sweet pie varieties; and by the 1947 the Modern Encyclopedia of Cooking listed 65 different varieties of sweet pies.
There are few things as American as apple pie, as the saying goes, but like much of America’s pie tradition, the original apple pie recipes came from England. These pre-Revolutionary prototypes were made with unsweetened apples and encased in an inedible shell. Yet the apple pie did develop a following, and was first referenced in the year 1589, in Menaphon by poet R. Greene: “Thy breath is like the steeme of apple pies.” (500 years later, we have “I’m Lovin’ It”, thanks to McDonald’s and its signature apple pie in an individual-serving sleeve.) Pies today are world-spanning treats, made with everything from apples to avocados. The winners of this year’s annual APC Crisco National Pie Championship included classic apple, pumpkin and cherry pies, but citrus pies, banana foster crème and Wolf Pack trail mix pies have all made the awards list. Pies have come a long way since the days of magpie and pepper, but many bakeries — including The Little Pie Shop in New York City, in the audio below — say a classic apple pie is still their top holiday seller.
FAQs
The Ancient Egyptians were the first to invent a dish close to what we know as a pie today. They had a honey filling covered in a crusty cake made from oats, wheat, rye or barley. A recipe for chicken pie was also discovered on a tablet carved prior to 2000 BC.
What is a historical fact about pie? ›
Pies were actually termed 'pyes' in medieval England. It wasn't until the 1500s that someone had the novel idea of filling a pie with fruit rather than meat, and it is thought that the very first cherry pie was sampled by Queen Elizabeth I herself!
What is the history of pie dish? ›
The history of the pie has its roots in ancient Egypt and Greece. The ancient Greeks ate pie (artocreas), though it was of the savory type with meat in an open pastry shell. The Romans may have been the first to create a pie that included a top and bottom crust.
What is the history of pie for kids? ›
Pie has a long and varied history. Ancient Greeks, Romans, and Egyptians made a form of pie that included a crust of crushed grain mixed with water and a meat filling. Originally, the crust was so thick and dense that it was not edible.
Who invented pie first? ›
Archimedes was the first person to calculate an accurate estimate for pi, which we've since discovered is equal to about 3.14159.
What are three interesting facts about pie? ›
Pyes (pies) originally appeared in England as early as the twelfth century. The crust of the pie was referred to as “coffyn”. There was actually more crust than filling. Often these pies were made using fowl and the legs were left to hang over the side of the dish and used as handles.
What are 5 facts about pi? ›
Here are five fascinating facts about the wonderful natural constant that we know as π, but which we can never, ever write down in numbers.
- Pi was estimated independently in China around 400 AD. ...
- Pi is irrational. ...
- Pi is transcendental. ...
- Any numerical expression for Pi is infinite.
The first recorded use of π as a mathematical symbol comes from the Welsh mathematician William Jones in a 1706 work called Synopsis Palmariorum Matheseos, in which he abbreviated the Greek περιϕέρεια, (meaning “circumference,” or “periphery”) to its first letter: π.
How did 3.14 get the name pie? ›
It was not until the 18th century — about two millennia after the significance of the number 3.14 was first calculated by Archimedes — that the name “pi” was first used to denote the number. “He used it because the Greek letter Pi corresponds with the letter 'P' and pi is about the perimeter of the circle.”
Who brought the pie to America? ›
It arose from culinary influences from France, the Netherlands, and the Ottoman Empire as early as 1390—centuries before the Pilgrims set foot on Plymouth Rock. Eventually, apple pie was brought to the colonies by European settlers, where the dish quickly caught on.
Why are pies called pies? It comes from the Medieval Latin pie, meaning fish or meat contained in a pastry. It may go back to another Medieval Latin word, pia, meaning much the same. It's possible that, as Quora User notes, it goes back to the Latin pica, meaning "magpie."
Why did they put birds in pies? ›
A pie bird is a hollow ceramic or stoneware tool that is placed in the center of pies to prevent the filling from bubbling over.
What is the story behind pie? ›
Sometime before 2000 BC, a recipe for chicken pie was written on a tablet in Sumer. Pie pastry is believed to have originated in Ancient Greece. In the plays of Aristophanes (5th century BC), there are mentions of sweetmeats including small pastries filled with fruit.
What was the first known pie recipe? ›
Still, our ancestors in the pie kitchen tossed up a few good ideas. Check out the American Pie Council website, for instance, where a breezy history notes that the very first written pie recipe “was published by the Romans and was for a rye-crusted goat cheese and honey pie.”
Why do we celebrate pie? ›
The celebration of Pi Day began on March 14, 1988, at the San Francisco Exploratorium, where physicist Larry Shaw organised a celebration to make mathematics more relatable and fun. March 14, 1879, also happens to be the birthday of Albert Einstein, one of the most influential scientists of the 20th century.
How did we come up with pie? ›
Archimedes developed the polygonal approach to approximating π. The first recorded algorithm for rigorously calculating the value of π was a geometrical approach using polygons, devised around 250 BC by the Greek mathematician Archimedes, implementing the method of exhaustion.
What do pies stand for? ›
PIES are the four areas of a child's development- physical, intellectual, emotional, and social. Each of these areas is important to a child's overall development and a parent should engage their children in the PIES every day.
Why were pies baked originally in the USA? ›
The colonists cooked many a pie: because of their crusty tops, pies acted as a means to preserve food, and were often used to keep the filling fresh during the winter months. And they didn't make bland pies, either: documents show that the Pilgrims used dried fruit, cinnamon, pepper and nutmeg to season their meats.
Why is pi called pi? ›
The first recorded use of π as a mathematical symbol comes from the Welsh mathematician William Jones in a 1706 work called Synopsis Palmariorum Matheseos, in which he abbreviated the Greek περιϕέρεια, (meaning “circumference,” or “periphery”) to its first letter: π.
