Pie

A fruit pie from the Limburg region in the Netherlands

A pie is a type of food, normally a dessert. Pies are usually baked, or cooked, and often made in the shape of a circle or an oval. On the outside of a pie there is a sweet or savory crust, and on the inside there is a filling. Pies can be filled with sweet fruit filling, meat, or vegetables. Pie is great for desserts because of its delicious sweetness. Pie is also very delicious with its wide variety of available fillings.

Ingredients

Pies are baked with a shell or crust, which is usually made of pastry that covers or completely contains a filling of fruit, meat, fish, vegetables, cheeses, creams, chocolate, custards, nuts, or other sweet or savoury ingredients.

Pies can be either:

1. "filled", where a dish is covered by a pastry crust and the filling is placed on top of that,
2. "top-crust," where the filling is placed in a dish and covered with a pastry/potato mash top, or
3. "two-crust," with the filling completely enclosed in the pastry shell.

Savory pies

Bacon and egg pie Butter pie Chicken and mushroom pie Corned beef pie Cottage pie Kalakukko Meat pie

Meat and potato pie—made with meat (usually beef) and potatoes Pasta pie Pizza pie Pork pie Pot pie—a pie baked in a pot with meat or chicken, vegetables and gravy

Quiche Scotch pie Shepherd's pie (mashed potato crust) Stargazy pie Steak pie Steak and kidney pie

A pie made with fish

Sweet pies

Some of these pies are pies in name only, such as the Boston cream pie, which is a cake. Many fruit and berry pies are very similar, varying only the fruit used in filling.

Apple pie Banoffee pie Banana cream pie Blackberry pie Blueberry pie Boston cream pie Buko pie Cheesecake Cherry pie Chocolate pie—made with a chocolate custard and/or pudding

Chess pie Cream pie Custard pie Dutch apple pie Key lime pie Lemon meringue pie Mince pie Mississippi Mud pie Mock apple pie

Peach pie Pecan pie Peanut butter pie Pumpkin pie Rhubarb pie, Strawberry-rhubarb pie Shoofly pie—a pie filled with molasses Strawberry pie Sugar pie Sweet Potato Pie

A blackberry pie

Other

• Mud pie is made for fun by children, and is not eaten (unless it is the candy kind).

Variations of pie

There are many different kinds of pie. People from different countries often have their own different type of pie.

Great Britain, Australia and New Zealand

Meat pies with fillings such as steak and cheese, steak and kidney, minced beef or chicken and mushroom are popular in the United Kingdom, Australia and New Zealand as take-away snacks. They are also served with chips as an alternative to fish and chips at British chip shops. The residents of Wigan near Greater Manchester are so renowned for their preference for this food-stuff that they are often referred to as "Pie Eaters"^[source?] (though the historical reasons for this title are disputed). In honour of this, the main ingredient of a 'Wigan kebab' is the pie, which is placed in a barm cake to make up this popular local delicacy. The combination of pie and mash is traditionally associated with London. Shepherd's pie (which does not involve pastry) is also a favourite amongst people throughout Britain.

In contrast to other meat pies which are served hot, pork pies generally have a very high fat content and are always served cold.^[source?] These meat pies contain beef and gravy in a shortcrust piecase, often with a flaky top. Many bakeries and specialty shops sell gourmet pies for the more discriminating customer. A peculiarity of Adelaide (a city in Australia) food is the pie floater, where a meat pie is floated in a plate of thick green pea soup.

North America

A slice cut from an apple pie

Pot pies with a flaky crust and bottom are also a popular American dish, typically with a filling of meat (particularly beef, chicken or turkey), gravy, and mixed vegetables (potatoes, carrots and peas). Frozen pot pies are often sold in individual serving size.

Fruit pies may be served with a scoop of ice cream, a style known in North America as à la mode. Apple pie is a traditional choice, though any pie with sweet fillings may be served à la mode. This combination, and possibly the name as well, is thought to have been popularized in the mid-1890s in the United States.

A tourtière is a meat pie originating from Quebec in Canada, usually made with ground pork, veal, or beef.

Other countries

Many countries have their own style of pie and they have their own name. For example:

• Bisteeya is a type of sweet and savory pie common in Morocco. It has a filling of shredded chicken, ground almonds, and spices.
• Buko pie is a traditional Filipino pie with coconut filling.
• Pyrih is a Ukrainian (or pirog in Russian) pie that may be sweet and contain cottage cheese, or fruits like apple, plums or various berries. Savoury versions may consist of meat, fish, mushrooms, cabbage, buckwheat groats or potato.
• Torta caprese is a traditional Italian chocolate and almond or walnut pie, sometimes made with a touch of liqueur. The name refers to the island of Capri.
• Torta de Santiago is a type of almond pie from the Galicia region in Spain. The filling principally consists of ground almonds, eggs and sugar.
• Vlaai is a pie the Limburg region in the Netherlands. It comes in many different varieties of fruit fillings.
• Zelnik is a traditional Macedonian pastry made of thin crusts filled with either cheese and eggs, spinach, sorrel, crumbled meat, leeks and rice, or very often in the winter period, brined cabbage.

Pie throwing

Cream filled or topped pies are favourite props for humour, particularly when aimed at people who are too serious. Throwing a pie in a person's face has been a staple of film comedy since the early days of the movies, and is often associated with clowns in popular culture. Pranksters have taken to targeting politicians and celebrities with their pies, an act called pieing. Activists sometimes engage in the pieing of political and social targets as well. One such group is the Biotic Baking Brigade. "Pieing" can result in injury to people and pie throwers can face assault or more serious charges.

Other websites

The English Wiktionary has a dictionary definition (meanings of a word) for: pie

• The American Pie Council
• History of Pie
• Food Timeline, History Notes: Pie & Pastry