“Thirty-five percent of Americans admit to eating PIE for breakfast.”

National Geographic 5,000 Awesome Facts, fact # 11 on 35 on Decadent desserts

Pie is marvelous. Pie is delicious. Pie has been around since at least the 1600’s when Queen Elizabeth I was served cherry pie. At least that was the first time it was documented.

According to Wikipedia, a pie is a “baked dish which is usually made of a pastry dough casing” that contains a filling of various delicious ingredients. There are sweet pies that are, for example, apple, rhubarb (sweetened veggies), jam tarts (fruit preserves) and with nuts for pecan pie.

Then there are the pies with thicker fillings like custard pie and cream pie which are based on eggs and dairy.

Other pies can be filled with meat, such as steak pie, or a pot pie, which is filled with meat and vegetables. Quiches also are considered a pie.

The crust is what really makes the pie. A filled pie has pastry lining the baking dish with the filling on top but left open, or “top crust” pies with the filling on the bottom of the dish and then covered with a pastry. Two crust pies are exactly that, where there is crust on the bottom and then one on top of the filling.

People before 1600’s , medieval Europeans rarely ate a meal before noon and their meal would contain fish, other meats, fruit…all encased in a crust. (https://www.eater.com/2018/9/27/17905030/eat-pie-for-breakfast-apple-chess-pumpkin-sister-pie-bang-bang-pie-shop-theorita)

“Later in the 1800s, German settlers started making flaky crusts filled with apples — another European import.”

According to http://www.wusa9.com, there are 700 million dollars worth of pies (about 186 million pies) sold in grocery stores every year, and 1.6 million males aged 35-54 have eaten the last piece of pie and denied it.

1 in 5 Americans have admitted to eating a whole pie by themselves.

Apple pie is the top choice, followed by pumpkin as the second favorite pie.

90 percent of people agree that pie “tops the list of the simple pleasures in life”, and 1/3 of people have admitted craving pie in the middle of night. https://www.wusa9.com/article/entertainment/television/programs/great-day-washington/raise-your-pie-q-with-these-10-fun-facts-about-pies/65-510868041

January 23 is National Pie Day, but every day can be pie day. Especially first thing in the morning. It’s been going on for a long time.