When: December 1
National Pie Day on December 1st is dedicated to the glorious baked vessel that has carried everything from apples to kidneys to custard across six centuries of culinary history. Pie's journey from medieval savory meat-and-pastry case to beloved dessert staple is one of food's great metamorphoses. Today it means something different to every region, family, and season.
The Pilgrims probably never ate pie at the first Thanksgiving — pie became a symbol of American abundance only after wheat cultivation spread in the 1700s.
The earliest pie crust was never meant to be eaten. Medieval "coffins" — the term bakers actually used — were thick-walled vessels of flour and water built to cook and transport meat fillings. They were functional containers, the equivalent of a baking dish. The wealthy ate what was inside; the crust went to servants or was discarded. The transformation from container to food happened gradually, when cooks began adding butter and lard to the pastry to make it worth eating — a decision that changed what a pie was while keeping what it was called. The cultural divergence between British and American pie tradition runs along a savory-sweet line. Britain maintained the savory tradition: Cornish pasties, steak and kidney, Melton Mowbray pork pie are legally protected under geographical indication laws and taken with the seriousness of any regional product with centuries of history. American baking moved decisively toward sweet — apple, cherry, blueberry, pumpkin, pecan — to the point where...