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
Here's a brief history of finding π. The ancient Babylonians calculated the area of a circle by taking 3 times the square of its radius, which gave a value of pi = 3. One Babylonian tablet (ca. 1900–1680 BC) indicates a value of 3.125 for π, which is a closer approximation.
What does the apple pie symbolize? ›
Apple pie is traditionally associated with American patriotism and national identity. During World War II, soldiers famously claimed they were fighting for “mom and apple pie.” Since then, apple pie has become a symbol of family and home for many Americans.
What is the historical significance of pi? ›
The earliest known use of the Greek letter π to represent the ratio of a circle's circumference to its diameter was by the Welsh mathematician William Jones in 1706. The invention of calculus soon led to the calculation of hundreds of digits of π, enough for all practical scientific computations.
What is the brief history of pies and pastries? ›
The Ancient Egyptians created the first example of what we know as pies today. Later on, closer to the 5th Century BC, the Ancient Greeks were believed to invent pie pastry as it is mentioned in the plays of the writer Aristophanes and it was possible to work as a pastry chef in this era, a separate trade to a baker.
What are the first 100000000 digits of pi? ›
3.14159265358979323846264338327950288419716939937510 etc. Before you click remember - it's a byte a digit! The first 1000000 decimal places contain: 99959 0s, 99758 1s, 100026 2s, 100229 3s, 100230 4s, 100359 5s, 99548 6s, 99800 7s, 99985 8s and 100106 9s. There's one '3' before the decimal point...
What is the story the pie about? ›
In his autobiography, Soto recounts the story and emotions of his six-year-old self taking an apple pie off the rack and walking home with it, only to be overwhelmed by a guilt-ridden conscience. Throughout the narrative, Soto uses imagery and precise diction to recreate his experiences as a guilty …show more content…
What is pie slang for? ›
What does pie mean? To most of us, pie conjures up an image of a pastry with fruit filling, yum … but to drug dealers (or users) pie refers to a kilogram of drugs, usually cocaine.
What does sticking your finger in a pie mean? ›
to be involved in something, often when your involvement is not wanted.
What is apple pie slang for? ›
adjective. pertaining to or embodying values perceived as traditionally American, or, more broadly, as unassailable: apple-pie virtues of individualism and hard work; an apple-pie issue that no politician could vote against.
What are 3 facts about the history of pi? ›
Some interesting facts about Pi
- Pi is an irrational number; it is not possible to calculate Pi by dividing an integer by any other number.
- Pi is a never-ending and never-repeating number.
- As the value of Pi is never-ending, we can't find the true circumference or area of a circle.
The miraculous fact about Pi is that no matter the size of the circle, the value does not change, making Pi a mathematical constant. Adding to its allure, Pi is also an irrational number which means that its decimal representation has no end and no repeating pattern.
What is the significance of pi in real life? ›
Firstly, pi allows us to communicate to satellites. For example, to get Wi-Fi to work on planes, the antenna of a plane has to be pointed towards the satellite its accessing the Wi-Fi from. To do this, engineers use trigonometry, which uses pi, to calculate the direction that the antenna has to be facing.
What do pies symbolize? ›
Pies embody effort and love and care like no other food. The mere act of making it is valuable. The fact that you also get to enjoy eating it with those you love is a bonus.
Why is pie called pie? ›
The word "pie" is derived from the Latin word "pica," which means "magpie." This Latin term was used to describe a type of dish that contained a mixture of various ingredients, much like a magpie collects a variety of objects.
Who invented pie? ›
Believe it or not, it was in fact the Ancient Egyptians who were the first to create a dish that is similar to what we now know as a pie. Typically, they filled their 'pies' with honey and covered them in a crusty cake made from oats, wheat, rye and barley.
Why was pie called pie? ›
One source of the word "pie" may be the magpie, a "bird known for collecting odds and ends in its nest"; the connection could be that Medieval pies also contained many different animal meats, including chickens, crows, pigeons and rabbits.
What is the history of pie dish? ›
Pie, loosely defined as a crusty shell containing some variety of baked ingredients, has been around for thousands of years, and has been a part of virtually every culture throughout history. Pies are thought to have begun in ancient Egypt as far back as the Neolithic Age.
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.
