Homemade Pie Day Date in the current year: August 1, 2024

A pie is a baked dish consisting of a pastry dough crust and a sweet or savory filling. Common sweet pie fillings include fruit and berries, nuts, fruit preserves, sweetened vegetables such as rhubarb, custard, and pudding, while savory pies may be filled with meat, cheese, fish, seafood, vegetables, mushrooms, hard-boiled eggs, savory custard, or a mixture of the above in various combinations.

Although the first known use of the word “pie” in the English language is dated 1303, pies have existed since antiquity. Pie-like dishes, both sweet and savory, were known in ancient Egypt and Sumer, but it is ancient Greeks who are credited with having originated pie pastry. In the Medieval era, savory pies filled with meat or fish were more common than sweet pies.

Custard and fruit pie recipes began to appear in 15th-century England. They typically included dried fruit because fresh fruit were not sweet enough and sugar was hard to come by and very expensive. As sugar dropped in price in the 16th century, fruit pies (for example, apple, cherry, pear, and quince) became much more common.

The Pilgrims and other early settlers brought European pie recipes to America, but had to adapt them to the ingredients available to them in the New World, such as local vegetables and game, with guidance from Indigenous people. The roots of most iconic American pies, such as apple pie and pumpkin pie, can be traced back to the colonial times. The term “pie crust” emerged during the American Revolution.

According to several studies, the most popular pie flavors in the United States include apple (unsurprisingly), blueberry, butterscotch, cherry, chocolate cream, key lime, lemon meringue, peach, peanut butter, pecan, pumpkin, strawberry rhubarb, and sweet potato. Each state has its pie preferences, for example, sweet potato pie is a staple in the American South, and possum pie with its pecan shortbread crust and layers of chocolate and vanilla pudding is rarely seen outside of Arkansas.

For a long time, all pies were homemade from scratch. Today, freshly baked pies are readily available in bakeries and grocery stores, plus you can buy pre-made frozen pie crusts and even whole pies. But nothing beats a homemade pie fresh from the oven, especially during a family celebration of the 4th of July, Christmas or Thanksgiving.

We don’t know who came up with the idea of celebrating Homemade Pie Day (sometimes referred to as National Homemade Pie Day) or how long it has been observed, but there is no doubt that homemade pies deserve to be celebrated. You can celebrate this amazing holiday by baking your favorite pie or trying a new recipe, watching lattice pie crust tutorials on YouTube, hosting a tea party or a bake-off for your friends and family, and posting pictures of your homemade pie on social media with the hashtag #HomemadePieDay.