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Oh My! Shoefly Pie

Some Pie History

So you are sitting at a restaurant, reading the dessert menu. There's Cherry Pie, Apple Pie and Shoofly Pie.

Huh? Shoofly Pie, what's that?

According to pie history, Shoofly Pie is an early American pie dating back to the early 1700s. Made by the Pennsylvania Dutch colonists, this dessert pie was often baked in outdoor ovens and placed on windowsills to cool. This pie remains famous to this day, although other historic pies haven't fared so well.

Here's a few historical facts about pies:

The first pies were not desserts at all, but were filled with meat. ‘Pyes’ was the original spelling, dating back to twelfth century England.

The crust portion of the pie was called the ‘coffyn’. The coffin was made thicker than the meat filling it held.

The meat in these ‘pyes’ was often made using various fowl, positioning the legs to hang over the side of the dish when baked. The legs served as handles for easy removal and eating of the pye.

The fruit pie is thought to have first been made during the 1500s. However, there is evidence that pies containing figs and dates were baked for the Egyptian Pharaohs.

Queen Elizabeth I is credited with inventing the cherry pie.