Here’s one place in southwest IL where you can get free pie this week and on Sunday
Pie. From pizza pie to pie – the dessert – there’s been a lot of pie talk lately.
And I’m not stopping now.
Did you know that this Sunday, Jan. 23, is National Pie Day? I didn’t know this either until I got an email from Eckert’s. (I’m on their mailing list.)
Now through Sunday, Eckert’s is giving away free pie.
Yes, there’s a catch.
At Eckert’s Country Store & Restaurant, customers will receive a free slice of homemade pie with the purchase of any entrée at the restaurant, or a whole Dutch apple pie with the purchase of any family meal for four or a family combo feast to go.
On National Pie Day itself, customers can get a free pie when they purchase an apple pie (my favorite) at regular price. The choices are Dutch apple, caramel apple walnut, double crust apple and no sugar added apple.
Eckert’s is located at 951 S. Green Mount Road, Belleville. Call 618-233-0513, ext. 2, or visit eckerts.com to place an order.
Free pie. Oh joy! Can it get any sweeter than that?
This got me wondering about the history of National Pie Day and pies in general. So I started searching. (Don’t you just love Google?)
National Pie Day has been around since the mid-1970s and was, according to Wikipedia, started by a guy named Charlie Papazian.
Papazian, nuclear engineer, brewer and teacher from Boulder, Colorado, declared his birthday, Jan. 23, as National Pie Day. (He must really enjoy pie.)
Now don’t confuse this with Pi Day, the celebration of the mathematical constant π, observed on March 14.
Since 1986, National Pie Day has been sponsored by the American Pie Council. (I swear I’m not making this up.)
As for pie itself, Merriam-Webster defines “pie” as “a dessert consisting of a filling (as of fruit or custard) in a pastry shell or topped with pastry or both” and as a “meat dish baked with biscuit or pastry crust.”
It also can be used as a verb — and Three Stooges fans will appreciate this — “to throw a pie at (someone): to hit (someone) especially in the face with a pie.” (Yes, I’m giggling as I type this.)
The origin of the word “pie,” according to my trusty Oxford English Dictionary, comes from Middle English by way of Old French via the Latin word “pica,” or magpie, a bird that collects a variety of random objects for its nest.
This may be connected to Medieval pies (Wikipedia again) that contained multiple animal meats: chicken, crows, pigeons, rabbits.
But pies go back even further than that.
Early pies, known as galettes, consisted of “a crust of ground oats, wheat, rye, or barley containing honey inside,” again, according to Wikipedia’s pie article.
The article shows that early galettes go as far back as ancient Egypt, where evidence of these pastries were found on the tomb walls of the Pharaoh Ramesses II in the Valley of the Kings.
An ancient tablet from before 2000 BC in Sumer, the earliest known civilization in southern Mesopotamia, shows a recipe for chicken pie.
Anyway, there’s a lot of information out there about pie and its origins. (I’m sure I’ve already shared more than you ever wanted to know.)
No matter its origins or its evolution, just enjoy pie as we know it today. Apple, chocolate cream, rhubarb, coconut custard … grab a slice and bon appétit.
