Don't Forget it Jake, it’s Pie-Town.

November 17, 2013 2:32 PM

Pie-Town was held today (in Chicago) with America’s Baking Competition finalist Francine Bryson and her (no kidding) Chocolate Peanut Butter Bacon Pie! And with National Pie-Day coming up in January, again, you'll be all ready for the Great American Pie Festival next April with the National Pie Championships in Florida. Or stay at home and try out the winning recipes from last year (mostly non-bacon, non chocolate, non-peanut butter fruit pies, but still...Pie!)
posted by Smedleyman (20 comments total)

In Florida? What does Florida know about pies? Pie championships should be held in the Northeast or Midwest where pie is a supplementary religion.
posted by GenjiandProust at 2:47 PM on November 17, 2013

What does Florida know about pies?

Pecan, mostly. Oh, and Key lime.
posted by Sys Rq at 3:24 PM on November 17, 2013 [1 favorite]

In my circles, National Pie-Day is March 14th celebrated at 1:59 PM. Our international colleagues celebrate it on the 22nd of July.
posted by persona at 3:26 PM on November 17, 2013 [1 favorite]

> finalist Francine Bryson and her (no kidding) Chocolate Peanut Butter Bacon Pie!

Aren't we finally past the stage of expressing surprise that bacon works well in certain kinds of sweets?

Breaking it down for a moment: You have chocolate, peanut, salt, pork, and smoke flavors...

• Everybody knows the only way to make a good pie crust is with lard, which is rendered pork fat, so that should be a totally done thing: Animal flesh in your pie? It's more likely than you think. If your objection is to the idea of sweet pork, then you've never had a deli ham, a sugar cured ham, or a pineapple and ham pizza*.
• Chocolate, especially dark chocolate, has smoke and caramel flavors, as do roasted peanuts, so that should also be a done thing. A more overt smoke flavor, such as what cooked bacon will deliver, will call attention to itself but it's not going to conflict with the peanuts and chocolate, it's more like amplifying something that's already there
• Chocolate with salt is probably the most unusual thing on this list, but isn't so weird that I'm not seeing chocolate bars with sea salt on 'em in the grocery stores. For that matter, when you buy unsweetened peanut butter, odds are on that it's got plenty of salt in it. And combining chocolate and peanut butter should be such a done thing that TV commercials about it are cultural benchmark type jokes.

We're not talking orange juice and toothpaste, people. The only real difference between two otherwise-equal chocolate peanut butter pies is that the one with bacon will be smokier, richer, and have little chewy bits of damn fucking wonderment in it, bits which will have absorbed some of the sugar in the pie and released a lot of rich salty, smoky oil into the pie filling.

*(Please note: Pineapple and ham pizza is an abomination. However, many millions of people like it. They're wrong, but they've helped ensure pineapple and ham pizzas are neither unusual nor strange, and the point I am trying to make is that sweet pig flesh is not an unusual, strange thing.)
posted by ardgedee at 3:28 PM on November 17, 2013 [2 favorites]

In my circles,

I secant what you did there.
posted by GenjiandProust at 3:57 PM on November 17, 2013

I think the pizza (and it's weird step-child the calzone) long ago eclipsed the savory pie in the USA. Although I occasionally find a pasty shop in a city I am visiting.
posted by GenjiandProust at 4:12 PM on November 17, 2013

I'm not sure about Canada - I think it may be somewhere in the middle.

Nope. Sweet. We don't have meat pies at all really, but we do have pot pies (as does, I assume the US) which is basically just a pie full of soup. Even that's pretty uncommon, though.
posted by Sys Rq at 4:17 PM on November 17, 2013

If it's sweet, and it doesn't have fruit IT ISN'T PIE.
posted by aspo at 4:32 PM on November 17, 2013

I see Pie-town and I think HGTV.

Yes, I do like me some real estate porn.
posted by IndigoJones at 4:59 PM on November 17, 2013

Ardeegee: if you think Hawaiian Pizza is an abomination you're coming from such an alien culinary universe that any other opinion you might express is basically meaningless to me. However, as delicious as that and deli ham and sugar cured ham are I don't want any of them for dessert.

Second, while chocolate may have smoke flavors in it I don't want smoky-bacon level smoke flavors in my dessert.

Third, bacon is meat. I really am not too keen on significant amounts of beef, chicken, seafood, or pork in my dessert.

Award or no, my universe doesn't need any bacon in pies, thank you very much.
posted by Reverend John at 5:03 PM on November 17, 2013 [1 favorite]

The go-to place for meat pies in the U.S. is central Louisiana, specifically Natchitoches. Bonus points for anyone who pronounces it properly.
posted by TedW at 5:15 PM on November 17, 2013 [1 favorite]

No, Pie Day should be held in Pie Town. (Disclaimer: I knew Russell Lee)
posted by jim in austin at 5:24 PM on November 17, 2013

Natchitoches. Rhymes with acidosis?
posted by bz at 5:24 PM on November 17, 2013

Nope. Sweet. We don't have meat pies at all really...
Is tourtiere not a pie?
posted by islander at 7:33 PM on November 17, 2013

The go-to place for meat pies in the U.S. is central Louisiana

This is reminding me that the Hubig's pies factory in New Orleans burned down last year. I only found out today, a day that I am actually in New Orleans. :(
posted by Pruitt-Igoe at 1:27 AM on November 18, 2013

IIRC there was a certain amount of panicked hoarding. I wonder if any are still uneaten.
posted by elizardbits at 5:50 AM on November 18, 2013

I would think that the extreme humidity of Florida would ruin many pies. Shoo-fly pie would just absorb water and become a soggy mess. And good shoo-fly pie in Pennsylvania Dutch Country is a wonder.
posted by X-Himy at 6:25 AM on November 18, 2013

Is tourtiere not a pie?

Sure, but so is seal flipper pie. Tourtière is regional cuisine, not (at all) national.
posted by Sys Rq at 10:49 AM on November 18, 2013

Canada has many savory pies: tourtiere, rappy pie, quiches, potato pies, fish pies, and variants of Brit originals like Cornish pasties. I can buy most of these at my local supermarket deli section. To say these are regional rather than national is to ignore the fact that most Brit pies are also regionally-based. If the poster was trying to say that there is no steak-and-kidney pie in Canada, he/she is also mistaken. Game pies are difficult to come by, but no more so here than Britain, I should think. (Unless, in either country, you know a hunter who is willing to share.) /derail

That pie that won the US contest, though... Dependent on canned milk (not unusual but not prize-worthy, either). Microwaved bacon? And some chemical concoction called "vanilla butter nut flavor". Nothing wrong with combining bacon, peanut butter, and chocolate, but this pie sounds disgusting.
posted by CCBC at 2:52 PM on November 18, 2013

Natchitoches. Rhymes with acidosis?
posted by bz at 8:24 PM on November 17 [+] [!]


No, but there's a town in Texas that comes close.
posted by TedW at 3:55 PM on November 18, 2013