50 Fun Facts About Pie

The first known use of 'pie' (1303) is in the accounts of a priory in which English county?

Bolton Priory kept the books; the word may come from the magpie, a bird that collects odds and ends, like a medieval pie's mixed fillings.

What was the medieval name for the stiff, often inedible pastry case that held a pie's filling?

The word meant a basket or box; open-topped pies were called 'traps', and the case mainly served to preserve the filling.

The expression 'to eat humble pie' comes from a pie made with what?

'Umbles' were the innards; umble pie was food for the lowly.

Evidence of early sweet pastries appears on the tomb walls of which pharaoh?

He ruled from 1304 to 1237 BC; the first written Roman pie was rye dough filled with goat's cheese and honey.

Apple pie recipes were first recorded in the 14th century in which country?

The Forme of Cury gives a recipe with apples, figs, raisins and pears in a pastry 'cofyn'.

'For Mom and apple pie' was supposedly American soldiers' stock answer for why they fought in which war?

The Washington Post has argued the phrase should really be 'as American as a cobbler'.

A custard-style pumpkin pie first appeared in the cookbook American Cookery, published when?

Libby's, the most popular canned pumpkin, uses only the Dickinson variety of Cucurbita moschata.

Key lime pie probably derives from a 1931 'Magic Lemon Cream Pie' recipe promoted by which condensed-milk maker?

The acidic juice curdles the yolks and condensed milk so the filling sets without baking.

In 2006, Key lime pie was designated the official state pie of which state?

Statute 15.052 made it official in July of that year.

Which state named pecan pie its official state pie in 2013?

No recipe older than an 1886 Harper's Bazaar pecan custard pie has been found; Karo syrup's makers popularised the modern version.

Historically, mince pies were made with what?

Neat's tongue, beef, mutton and even tripe featured; the Puritans attacked the pie for its indulgent Catholic connotations.

According to the PGI rules, a Cornish pasty must be crimped where?

It must be D-shaped and filled with beef, potato, swede and onion; a top-crimped oval is a Devon pasty.

Which Leicestershire town gives its name to Britain's most famous pork pie?

The trade there began around 1831 as a sideline in Edward Adcock's bakery; the pie uses hot-water crust and jellied stock.

Purists say a shepherd's pie should contain which meat, as opposed to the beef in a cottage pie?

The term 'cottage pie' was first recorded in 1791; the two names have been used interchangeably ever since.

Pi Day was founded in 1988 by physicist Larry Shaw at which San Francisco institution?

Staff marched round a circular space and ate fruit pies; the US House endorsed the day in 2009, and it is also Einstein's birthday.

Which physicist's birthday falls on Pi Day, March 14, prompting look-alike contests in Princeton?

He lived in Princeton for more than twenty years at the Institute for Advanced Study.

The pie-in-the-face gag was first seen on film in 1909's Mr. Flip, starring which comedian?

Chaplin and Stan Laurel had performed the gag on stage for Fred Karno's music-hall troupe.

How many pies were used in Laurel and Hardy's 1927 pie fight, The Battle of the Century?

A later $200,000 scene elsewhere used 4,000 pies and took five days to shoot.

Which tech billionaire was famously pied in Belgium in 1998?

Rupert Murdoch got the same treatment during a 2011 parliamentary hearing in London.

Banoffee pie was invented in 1971 at the Hungry Monk restaurant in which English county?

Owner Nigel Mackenzie and chef Ian Dowding adapted a San Francisco coffee-toffee pie; the name blends banana and toffee.

Which state made the whoopie pie its official state treat in 2011?

Its official state dessert is blueberry pie; South Portland baked a 1,062-pound whoopie pie that same year.

Moon Pies are made in which Tennessee city?

Two graham crackers, marshmallow and a coating, traditionally washed down with an RC Cola.

Boston cream pie, actually a custard-filled cake, is the official dessert of which state?

It was reportedly created for the opening of the Parker House Hotel in 1856, when cakes and pies were baked in the same pans.

Which Southern pie's name may be an eggcorn of 'it's jes' pie'?

Another theory derives it from 'cheese-cake pie'; it is the South's most searched-for Thanksgiving pie.

Shoofly pie, a Pennsylvania Dutch specialty, is made with which sweetener?

The name was borrowed from a popular molasses brand, not from flies buzzing round the filling.

Tourtière, a minced pork pie eaten at Christmas réveillon, comes from which Canadian province?

Immigrants carried it to New England mill towns in the late 19th century.

Stargazy pie, with fish heads poking through the crust, comes from which Cornish village?

It is eaten on Tom Bawcock's Eve, celebrating a heroic catch that saved the village from starvation.

The pie floater, a meat pie served in thick pea soup, is a specialty of which Australian city?

Sold from pie carts since the 1890s, it was declared a South Australian Heritage Icon in 2003.

How many blackbirds were baked in the pie in the nursery rhyme Sing a Song of Sixpence?

The first printed verse, from around 1744, actually had 'naughty boys' in the pie rather than birds.

The Eskimo Pie ice cream bar was renamed what in 2020?

Danish immigrant Christian Nelson dreamed it up in Iowa in 1920 for a boy who could not choose between ice cream and chocolate.

Buko pie, made with young coconut and condensed milk, is a specialty of which country?

Los Baños in Laguna province is famous for it.

Which Australian invention of 1949 seals a sandwich into a pie-like pocket over a fire?

Dr Ernest Smithers of Bondi patented it; he had earlier invented the Surfoplane.

Cheesecake was reputedly served to athletes at the first ancient Olympic Games, in which year?

Modern cream cheese was developed in 1872 by William Lawrence of Chester, New York, trying to copy Neufchâtel.

The upside-down tarte Tatin is named after two sisters who ran a hotel in which country?

Legend says an overworked Stéphanie Tatin created it by accident in the 1880s at Lamotte-Beuvron.

A 1450 recipe for 'grete pyes' contained which of these among its odds and ends?

Also beef, capons, mallard, teal, rabbits, woodcocks, marrow, egg yolks, dates, raisins and prunes.

Where did serving sharp cheddar or Wensleydale on apple pie begin in the 17th century?

It caught on in American and Canadian dairy regions such as New England.

An early Dutch cookbook printed in Brussels in 1514 documents a recipe for what?

Dutch apple pie still comes in crumb-topped and lattice-topped styles.

Which pie has been called 'the South's most searched-for Thanksgiving pie'?

Its filling is little more than flour, butter, sugar and eggs.

Which region's cuisine gave the world pâté chaud, a puff-pastry savoury meat pie?

Meat pies are also everyday takeaway snacks in Britain, Australia, South Africa and New Zealand.

Medieval pastry was often baked first as a 'pot' of dough with a removable lid, giving us which term?

Ovens were expensive to build and fuel, so cooks improvised.

The earliest known pie chart appears in an 1801 work by which Scottish engineer?

Playfair's Statistical Breviary used one to show how much of the Turkish Empire lay in Asia, Europe and Africa. Florence Nightingale later adapted the form into her 'rose' diagrams.

Don McLean's handwritten 'American Pie' lyrics sold at auction in 2015 for about how much?

The catalogue notes finally confirmed that the song climaxes with the killing at the Altamont Free Concert, ten years after the 1959 plane crash.

Which singer's shortened 2000 cover of 'American Pie' hit number one in at least 15 countries?

It was recorded for her film The Next Best Thing after co-star Rupert Everett talked her into it. McLean called it 'a gift from a goddess'; NME called it 'sub-karaoke fluff'.

Which corn syrup's makers claimed pecan pie was a 1930s 'discovery' by a sales executive's wife?

The claim is shaky: a pecan custard pie recipe ran in Harper's Bazaar back in 1886, and older versions used molasses or dark sugar syrup.

Pie Town, which holds a Pie Festival every September, is a tiny community in which US state?

It sits on US Highway 60 in Catron County with a population of 166 at the 2020 census, just down the road from the Very Large Array radio telescope.

Which silent film star made pork pie hats by stiffening fedora brims with sugar water?

The style started as women's wear in the 1860s, named for its flat crown resembling the pie. Its heyday as menswear came during the Great Depression.

The tinned steak-and-kidney pie brand Fray Bentos takes its name from a port in which country?

Liebig's Extract of Meat Company processed everything there until the 1960s, and the name first became synonymous with corned beef before pies. Baxters now makes the UK range in Scotland.

The first recorded pie-eating contest, a charity fundraiser in 1878, was held in which city?

Winner Albert Piddington took home a 'Handsomely Bound Book'. Nobody recorded how many pies he ate.

Weird Al's unreleased parody 'Chicken Pot Pie' reworks which Paul McCartney and Wings song?

McCartney, a strict vegetarian, declined to bless a song condoning eating meat. He offered to approve 'Tofu Pot Pie', but Al refused because the chorus needed chicken clucking.

The first recorded cherry pie was baked for which English monarch?

Fruit pies only took off in the 16th century once sugar got cheaper; before that most pies were expected to hold meat or fish. The queen was also routinely given quince and pear pies at New Year.