The Great Debate: What’s the Origin of Key Lime Pie?
Article & Photos by: allie albanese
Key Lime Pie: a Southern staple or a Northern creation? The debate surrounding the origin of Key Lime Pie rages on!
When it comes to iconic American desserts, Key Lime Pie is famous for its pale yellow color, tart and creamy filling, and buttery graham cracker crust. But did you know that the origin of Key Lime Pie is actually a hotly contested topic?
Was it a Key West invention by resourceful fishermen? Does a woman known only as “Aunt Sally” deserve credit for the original pie recipe? Or does a clever marketing ploy hatched in a New York City test kitchen deserve thanks for the origin of Key Lime Pie? Read on to learn the truth behind this delicious debate!
What is Key Lime Pie?
If you’ve never indulged in a delicious slice of Key Lime Pie, I highly recommend you remedy that situation ASAP! It’s as southern as Apple Pie or Pecan Pie and I guarantee it’s one that will earn a place at the top of your list of favorite pie recipes.
But in case you’re not familiar with it, Key Lime Pie is synonymous with the island chain in South Florida known as the Florida Keys. Made with egg yolks, sweetened condensed milk, and key lime juice, this citrus fruit pie is traditionally served in a crust made with graham crackers and topped with either meringue or fresh whipped cream. (Although more modern recipes sometimes incorporate cream cheese or sour cream and use a regular pie crust or pastry crust instead.)
However, because fresh key limes can be difficult to find outside the Sunshine State, Persian limes (aka the regular limes you typically find in the grocery store) are often used as a substitute when making classic Key Lime Pie.
What is a Key Lime?
Although tart key limes are considered an important symbol of Florida, these golf ball-sized limes are actually native to Southeast Asia. (You may also know them as Mexican limes, West Indian limes, bartender’s limes, and Omani limes.) The main difference between key limes and regular limes is that key limes are smaller, light yellow vs. green when ripe, and tarter and more aromatic.
Although they still grow readily in Florida and other parts of the USA, commercial cultivation of key limes in the United States ceased in 1926 after a hurricane wiped out lime crops in Florida, the Bahamas, and the Gulf Coast. As a result, destroyed key lime trees were replanted with hardier Persian limes. Today, most key limes are imported from Central America and Mexico.
The History of Key Lime Pie
As a Southerner, suggesting the earliest recipe for Key Lime Pie originated anywhere other than the Florida Keys would be culinary heresy! Especially considering the Florida State Legislature declared it the official state pie of Florida in 2006. However, a few years ago, cookbook author and pastry chef Stella Parks made a shocking (well-researched!) claim about this Keys staple.
Origin of Key Lime Pie: Stella Parks’ Theory
According to Parks, the Borden milk company might be the true inventor of the first Key Lime pie. Their strategy? To boost sales of sweetened condensed milk, an essential ingredient in this iconic dessert that was invented by Gail Borden in 1853.
In her book BraveTart: Iconic American Desserts, Parks writes that the earliest documented recipe dates back to 1931 and originated in a Borden test kitchen in New York City. Known as “Magic Lemon Cream Pie,” Borden’s no-bake pie recipe called for lemon juice instead of the characteristic key lime juice, but otherwise, it was the same as what we know to be Key Lime Pie.
Origin of Key Lime Pie: David Sloan’s Theory
As you might imagine, this sent Floridians into an uproar! So David Sloan, author of The Key West Key Lime Pie Cookbook and co-founder of the annual summer Key Lime Festival, took to social media, rallying residents of Key West and Florida to help him disprove Parks’ claim by digging up pie recipes that pre-date 1931.
Sloan’s counter-narrative suggests the first recipe for Key Lime Pie was invented in the late 1800s by Key West sponge fishermen. They made it on their boats by mixing stale Cuban bread with sweetened condensed milk, key lime juice, and wild bird eggs and letting it sit in the sun to “bake.” However, popularity for the dessert didn’t truly take hold until a cook known as “Aunt Sally” refined the sponge fishing recipe for her employer, Florida’s first self-made millionaire William Curry, at the historic Curry Mansion Inn in Key West. And because modern refrigeration wasn’t yet available to store fresh milk, sweetened condensed milk remained a key ingredient in her creation of this now-famous treat.
Although the Aunt Sally story has never been verified, Sloan maintains he has historical records proving Aunt Sally was a real person and had access to condensed milk well before the 1930s. He also speculates that Borden Dairy might have gotten inspiration for its Magic Lemon Cream Pie through a 1931 recipe contest, where they likely substituted lemons for the less readily available Key limes.
So Who Invented the Original Recipe for Key Lime Pie?
Well, the jury’s still out!
Other than a 1926 Key West Citizen newspaper advertising a 10-cent “lime pie,” neither Parks, Sloan, nor any of Sloan’s social media followers have been able to find an official Key Lime Pie recipe on record before 1931. Even the Miami Herald tried to help solve the riddle by conducting an investigation of its own, but the earliest local recipe found in its archives was dated 1933.
This means Parks may be right about the origin of Key Lime Pie after all….but you’ll never find me admitting that the official pie of Florida was invented in New York City!
What’s the Best Key Lime Pie You’ve Ever Had?
Whether the official state dessert of Florida is a Southern creation or a Northern one, the origin of Key Lime Pie doesn’t change the fact that it is ridiculously delicious! And since it’s a personal mission of mine to enjoy all the authentic KLP that I can, please drop your recommendations in the comments below for where I can find a good slice of this tart and creamy pie!
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A writer and photographer, Allie Albanese is the founder and curator of Parched Around the World. Here she seeks to tell stories about the intersection of food, drinks, cultures, and traditions in places near and far.
Allie holds a Master’s degree in Journalism from American University and for more than a decade she has worked as a freelance journalist covering wine, cocktails, food, and travel for various publications across the United States and abroad.
If you want to know the way to Allie’s heart, give her a giant bag of peanuts or a jar of peanut butter and she’ll be your best friend for life!
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Hi Friends, I’m Allie!
I’m an Italian-German-Southerner with a deep passion for food, drinks & travel. After 15 years in NYC as a Certified Sommelier & cocktail creator, plus a stint in New Zealand learning how to make wine, I’m now back home in Georgia where I blend my love for culinary arts & travel into my work as a writer & photographer. Thank you so much for joining me here at Parched where I look forward to exploring the world together one bite, sip & adventure at a time!
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Very interesting article. I had no idea there was any debate about key lime pie coming from Florida!
I was so surprised to discover this, too! Being a southerner, I never dreamed of questioning where it came from, haha. So it was fun to dig in to the topic a bit more!
This is an interesting story about Key Lime Pie, not a topic I’ve read about before. I think I’ll always consider it a southern recipe no matter what haha
You and me both! As a Southern gal myself, I’d be in trouble if I claimed otherwise. 😂 So happy you found the topic interesting — I enjoyed digging into the back story of this one!