[QUOTE=brujaja]
Wait, Student Driver, I want to hear more about the regional pie differences. I make blackberry pies a lot, and I live in California. I even still have berries left in the freezer from last year, because I picked so many.
Are you talking about things like sugar in the pie crust (shudder! abomination!) vs. sugar on the pie crust? (mmmmmmm!)
[/QUOTE]
Ooh, a thread hijack. For pie!
[hijack]
(Editing to add: my travels are mostly limited to states east of the Mississippi, so this covers only the eastern portions of the country.)
Beyond the OP’s thread title, I love pie. Fruit pie, to be precise. I always ask for fruit pie when eating out at American-style restaurants. My sworn enemies are cream and meringue pies. My regional pie experiences:
Fruit pies dominate in the northern half of the eastern US, cream/meringue pies in the southern half; fruit cobblers, which are hardly the same thing at all, are routinely offered in cream/meringue pie territory for diners who ask for fruit pie. “Apple pie, hon? Sorry sweetie, we got apple cobbler, blackberry cobbler, cherry cobbler. Want some cobbler?” NO! At best, cobbler is like getting a badly mangled piece of pie where the server not only couldn’t cut a wedge of pie without destroying it, but they also forgot to give you the bottom crust; at worst, it’s warm preserves with a lump of baked biscuit dough or a matzoh ball. The last cobbler I had, in Louisville KY about 6 months ago, was like bread pudding with blackberry jam mixed in.
In Indiana, where I live, the cobbler/pie dividing line is about 50 miles south of Indianapolis, around Seymour. North of Seymour, your pie list at dessert lists mostly fruit pies, with a few meringue pies. South of Seymour, the pie list is cream, meringue, and pecan only, with fruit baked only into heathen cobblers. I swear to God that fruit pie has never existed in Kentucky, Tennessee, Georgia, and other states farther south.
Fruit pie crusts become more traditional, and therefore more tasty, the farther north or northeast you go. North = flaky, probably lard-filled crusts, usually traditional or lattice top. (In some old atlas probably lies a geographical line exclaiming “thar be lard in ye crusts” that cuts off New England, Michigan, etc., from the rest of the country, and this vegetarian hopes no one ever lets him know. Lard = great pie crust.) Occasionally, there is the odd cheddar-fortified crust mutation. As you go south, pie crusts become bizarre, and unlike real pie crust-- some are like the crunchy stuff on coffee cakes, some thick and chewy like dumplings. I think this is like that sugar-in-crust heresy you mention. Sugar on the crust I do see, but it seems to be mostly on pre-baked pies restaurants source from vendors, as opposed to pies made locally.
(This of course neglects to mention the travesties called “pie crusts” used in cream/meringue pies… crushed Oreos, crushed graham crackers, crushed pork rinds…)
Cheese as a topping for fruit pie seems to be in retreat to the northernmost parts of the country. As I was growing up, I recall seeing it regularly in Indy-area restaurant menus, which is where I got the idea of trying it myself. Now, I get a funny look whenever I order it around here. I did see “cheddar cheese” listed as pie options on menus when last traveling in Wisconsin and Vermont, but I’m not sure if that’s a vestige of old cheese-and-pie customs, or a side-effect of the cheese industries in those states.
Fruit fillings also vary by region-- large chunks of fruit with the merest hint of fruit goo filler in the northeast, with higher proportions of goo, less of fruit, as you go south and west (unless it’s a local fruit). Spices and sweetening also seem to vary-- sweeter, more likely to be doped up with caramel or cinnamon or whatever, as you go south and west.
Based on my recent travels:
Great pie states: Maine, Michigan, New Hampshire, Vermont, Wisconsin.
Decent pie states: Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, New York, Pennsylvania.
Evil pie states: Kentucky, Tennessee, Georgia, Alabama, Florida.
Simple way to tell if you’re traveling in pie territory: stop at a country antique mart, ask if they have pie birds. The more pie birds they have, the better the fruit pie in the area.
One pie thing I’ve never really tracked: rhubarb. I’ve had good rhubarb pie (always mixed with strawberries for some reason), but I have no idea what regions it’s prominent in.
Wow. (Reading above). It’s not like I’m crazy or anything…
[/hijack]
So, I wonder how the OP will think of this thread-- it’s not dying that silent death, but… is it progressing like he imagined? 
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