Nothing is better in the hot summer heat than a cold, sweet treat to cool down. You might immediately run to the freezer for an ice pop, popsicle, or a scoop of ice cream, but I’m always looking to try out a new recipe to crave my sweet tooth. I find myself reaching for more tropical offerings during the summer months- bananas, pineapple, mangoes, coconuts, limes- and what could be more appealing than a cool, tangy-sweet key lime pie? But what is the history behind this refreshing dish… and how can I make it myself?
Bring your appetite as we serve up different dishes invented in the USA in our Teen Foodies programs this summer, hosted by WPPL’s Teen Librarian, Bethany. For the first Teen Foodies on June 17, we’re diving into the history of Florida’s state pie, the Key Lime Pie!
What is a “Key Lime Pie”?
Key Lime Pies consist of four key ingredients: Key Lime, a variety only grown in the Florida Keys, condensed milk, egg yolks, and a graham cracker crust. The Key Limes are juiced, and mixed with the condensed milk and egg yolks, and then cooled in a refrigerator. Often, the pies are also cooked to pasteurize the eggs; whipped cream or meringue might be added for extra flavor, but the pies are always served chilled. The filling has a consistency similar to cheesecake, creamy and light, while the flavor of the pie itself is tart and sweet.
What is the history behind “Key Lime Pies”?
The roots of the Key Lime Pie can be traced to two ingredients- condensed milk and of course, the Key Limes! It’s tough to imagine a time before refrigerators, but for centuries, this was the reality. Iceboxes, the predecessor of fridges, was invented in 1802 by American farmer and cabinetmaker Thomas Moore, but ice needed to be processed, harvested, and delivered across state lines to chill food. The refrigerators we see and use everyday in our kitchens would not become a common household appliance until the 1940s. For people living in the deep South and in tropical regions of the world, before these inventions, dairy products would become moldy or sour overnight. The solution: condensed milk. Although preserving milk in this method had been around since 1820, Gail Borden Jr perfected the method in 1856, awarded a US Patent for a vacuum to separate excess water, condensing the milk in the process. His factory, the New York Condensed Milk Company, opened one year later in Connecticut. Borden’s condensed milk raised in popularity during the outbreak of the Civil War, sold exclusively to Union armies. In 1875, the condensed milk was sold to consumers, becoming widely popular in the Florida Keys and other areas of the country without direct access to ice deliveries.
Key Limes have a less recorded history. It is believed that this variant of limes was imported by Christopher Columbus to Haiti on his second voyage in 1493; then, sometime later, the Haitians and Bahamians brought these plants over to the Florida Keys in the 1800s. Another story attributes Henry Perrine, American medical doctor and horticulturalist, with bringing tropical produce specifically to plant introduction stations in the Florida Keys. In 1821, Perrine was accidentally poisoned with arsenic but never fully recovered, and a common belief was that warmer climates could remedy any ails. He applied for a diplomatic position in a tropical country through the US government, and was appointed United States Consul in Campeche, Mexico from 1827-1837. While in Mexico, the United States Treasury Department asked all Consuls to research and send useful plants to the US to be cultivated; Perrine was the only one to respond, and focused on tropical plants and fruits, which had been used as medicines for various ails in South American cultures, sending their seeds to nurseries and farms in the Southern United States. He believed that the best place for these tropical plants to thrive in the United States were on the Florida Keys- a string of small islands between the main coast of Florida and Cuba. His limes became known as Key Limes, after the Florida Keys.
With condensed milk, key limes, and chicken eggs available to people living in the Florida Keys, it was only a matter of time before someone tried to make a dessert combining the ingredients. As for who invented this dessert… we don’t really know! The short answer is that similar recipes may have been used to make a pie dessert with the ingredients, but a recipe for the pies was not written down or published until 1931. Remember Borden’s condensed milk? In 1931, the company published a recipe book containing recipes featuring their products, one of which being a “Magic Lemon Cream Pie” which used lemon juice instead of lime juice. Different origin stories have also popped up; maybe it was Ernest Hemingway’s chef, who lived in the Keys, or maybe local restaurant menus from the 1920s can be attributed, advertising their lime pies, or maybe Florida’s first millionaire, William Curry’s cook Aunt Sally, invented the recipe in the late 1800s. Regardless of who created the first Key Lime Pie, the recipe has become an iconic staple of summertime desserts, and was designated as Florida’s official pie in 2006. The first Key Lime Festival was held in Indian Key Fill, Florida in 1953, a three day festival of fun centered around the famous citrus, and continues to be held annually at Key West. In 1978, almost 70 percent of all visitors to Key West have at least one piece of Key lime pie, according to Ted Scalia of the Key West Chamber of Commerce, and it continues to be a staple dish, a must-have for anyone visiting the Florida Keys on vacation.
I hope you learned something new about Key Lime Pies and the history behind this American dish! Teenagers, want to try it out? Check out the Teen Foodies program on June 17th, registration opens June 10th.
Resources:
https://quaintcooking.com/2022/06/17/the-history-of-key-lime-pie/
https://crabs.com/blogs/news/key-lime-pie-history
https://www.nytimes.com/1978/01/18/archives/lime-pies-are-yellow-down-in-key-west.html
Borden Condensed Milk Ad Attribution – By Unknown illustrator – Advertisement from rear cover of To the Klondike Gold Fields by the Alaska Commercial Company, 1898, San Fransisco, California. Digital scan at https://archive.org/details/toklondikegoldfi00alas, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=24988089
