According to a survey conducted by Crisco, the most popular dessert pie in America is apple, followed by pumpkin and pecan.
The word "pie" is derived from the magpie bird - it is assumed that the reason is the magpie collects miscellaneous objects in its nest.
Key lime pie was selected as the official pie of Florida in 2006.
Apple pie was selected as the official pie of Vermont in 1999.
In Australia, meat pies are more popular than hamburgers, pizzas and hot dogs.
Boston Cream Pie is actually a cake; cheesecake is actually a pie (a tart, technically).
In 1644, Oliver Cromwell banned the eating of mince pie on Christmas, declaring it a pagan form of pleasure. The ban remained in effect for 16 years.
In the state of Kansas, it was once illegal to serve ice cream on cherry pie.
Pie as a dessert is a relatively recent development - in the 19th century fruit pies were more commonly a breakfast food.
The first print mention of fruit pie is from Robert Green's Arcadia (1590): "thy breath is like the steam of apple-pyes"
Raisin pie is sometimes called "funeral pie", because it became a tradition to serve raisin pie with the meal that was served to family and friends at a wake or funeral. This was probably because it could be made in any season and preserved well when made days before the funeral.
Shoo-fly pie (a wet-bottom molasses pie) was used to attract flies from the kitchen.
Wealthy English favored "surprise pies", in which live creatures would pop out when the pie was cut open. (Perhaps 4 and 20 blackbirds?)
Pork pie hats are so-named because of their resemblance to pork pies.
Why do some people eat cheddar cheese with apple pie? Dating back to ancient times, it was tradition to end a meal with fruit and/or cheese, to aid digestion. The love of certain of these food combinations has persisted to this day.
Libby's canned pumpkin was introduced to America in 1929. Libby's is not actually pumpkin but another kind of squash called a Dickinson that also has orange flesh.
One popular pie in Shakespearean England ("courage pie") contained all the ingredients commonly thought to have aphrodisiac properties - sweet potatoes, wine and, of course, sparrow brains.
Frisbees are so-named because one of the founders of Wham-O discovered Yale University students throwing pie pans from Frisbie's Pies and yelling "Frisbie!" the way golfers yell "Fore!" The origin of Frisbee is an interesting story.
It is rumored that the Apple Marketing Board of New York used slogans such as "An apple a day keeps the doctor away" and "as American as apple pie", and thus "was able to successfully 'rehabilitate' the apple as a popular comestible" in the early 20th century when prohibition outlawed cider production.
Early Americans called pie fillings "timber".
Many believe Mock Apple Pie was invented during WWII, but it actually dates back to the 1850's.
Cornish pasties (a typical hand-sized pie) sometimes contains 2 courses - a savory filling on one side and a sweet filling on the other side.
McDonald's pies aren't actually pies; they're turnovers.
World's Largest Pumpkin Pie: As of February 2006, The Guinness Book of World Records recognizes a 2020-pound pie as biggest pumpkin pie on record. It was made by the New Bremen Giant Pumpkin Growers from New Bremen, Ohio.
World's Largest Cherry Pie: Charlevoix, Michigan, baked the World's Largest Cherry Pie in 1976 (17,420 pounds), only to be trumped by nearby Traverse, Michigan, in 1987 (28,350 pounds). Thus, there are 2 monuments boasting the World's Largest Cherry Pie only 50 miles apart. In 1992, however, the record was broken when the town of Oliver, British Columbia, baked a cherry pie that blew both records away - a whopping 39,683 pounds. Way to Go Pie!
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