Backcountry Notes

1915 recipe for "Pebble Dash" or Shoo-Fly Pie. Click on image for larger view.Like Stack Cake, Shoo-Fly Pie is a genuine example of folk cuisine, its origin obscure and its recipe subject to variation.  There are two conventional wisdoms concerning Shoo-Fly Pie, one holding that it is a traditional Pennsylvania Dutch food and the other that it is an example of old-time Southern vernacular cuisine. There is however no evidence that Shoo-fly Pie existed prior to the expansion of sorghum molasses production in the last half of the 19th century and it seems likely that, also like Stack Cake, Shoo-Fly Pie resulted from the increased availability of this inexpensive form of sugar.

The earliest printed reference to Shoo-Fly Pie appeared in a book published in 1915, Mary At The Farm And Book Of Recipes Compiled During Her Visit Among The "Pennsylvania Germans," by Edith M. Thomas.  A digital image of the recipe is shown above.  The next such reference was published in 1926.  Earlier publications contained recipes for "Molasses Pie" -- Recipes Tried and True, compiled by the Ladies' Aid Society of the First Presbyterian Church, Marion, Ohio, (1894), and The Inglenook Cook Book, compiled by Sisters of the Brethren Church, Elgin, Illinois (1906). The two Molasses Pie recipes are very different but the 1894 version is quite similar to recipes for Shoo-Fly Pie.

The origin of the name "Shoo-Fly Pie" of course has contending versions.  One version is that "Shoo-Fly" is an Anglicisation of the French word "soufflé." Seems unlikely, since Shoo-Fly Pie bears no resemblance to an soufflé.  The other attribution claims that the pies were so sweet that they attracted flie which had to be "shooed" away.  Take your pick.

While the name "Shoo-Fly Pie" probably originated in Pennsylvania Dutch country, its use spread throughout Southern Appalachia, where the availability of sorghum molasses had made such delicacies popular.  For a make-from-scratch recipe and illustrated step-by-step instructions, go here:

Christy Jordan's Southern Plate, Shoofly Pie and Subtitling Southerners

More recipes:

South of the Gnat Line, Shoo-Fly Pie

That's My Home, Shoofly Pie