Pieity

Saucyman – ‘As American as Pie’, is pie really that American? – Pat Buchanan

Jingoists be damned, the word is English. Mostly. In the 14th Century, the English language was the first to use the word pie to describe a meat or sweet filling baked in a pastry. Less English sounding, is piehus, which dates back to 1109, a term used to describe a place that sold pastry. Just to complicate the etymology – around the same time pie was being used to describe pastry, a pie also came to be the abbreviation for magpie – a bird that has a reputation for eating anything and whose nests are lined with little odds and ends, much like a pie is composed of scraps and leftovers.

So pie, the word, has its roots in Chaucer’s English. But there is such a thing as an American pie. Yes, American pies are have a reputation for sweetness but the pie’s Americanness has more to do with its importance in the colonists diet than its composition. When the colonists – Scots, Welch, Cornish, the very people who established US food traditions, first arrived in the States, the things they had traditionally used in their cookery, items like flour and milk were rare. As were proper brick ovens or even the tin lined ovens (called Dutch ovens) that were built into hearths. This made bread baking a tad problematic. Pies used less flour and could be baked in a pan with a lid over an open fire. Because of their ease and utility, pies quickly became a mainstay of the American kitchen, more likely to be found than bread. It remained this way for centuries.

The abundance of apples in the New England states/colonies made apple pie an early favorite – A pie that nativist hold as being especially American – A baking technique imported onto native shores, made with the apple varieties that didn’t exist in the old world became symbolic of cultural purity. Sweet Potato pie would be a better example of Americanism or possibly Shoofly pie – a sweet, thick pie based on the thrift of inexpensive molasses (& considering why molasses was cheap…), this pie could also be held up as an especially American pie.

Before I cracked open the books, I was expecting to find pie’s etymology to be roughly English. I wouldn’t have been surprised to find historically a pyghe was some sort of eel and squab concoction baked in a suet crust. It was a nice reminder to realize, that recipes like words, change, evolve, and come to reflect influences of the people who use them, sure let’s call pies American.