National Blueberry Pie Day
A lattice crust, a purple filling, a summer afternoon you'll remember. National Blueberry Pie Day on April 28 honors the dessert that might be the most American of American pies.
Why it matters
LATTICE IT UP!
It’s National Blueberry Pie Day — April 28. Honor America’s native-fruit pie, the one George Washington probably ate. Roll the crust. Weave the lattice. Bake until the filling bubbles.
The Story
Blueberry pie is one of the few truly native American desserts. Blueberries are native to North America. Colonial pies adopted them. Americans kept them.
Blueberries are one of only three fruits native to North America (the others being cranberries and Concord grapes). Native Americans had been eating, drying, and cooking with blueberries for 13,000+ years before European contact. Wampanoag peoples introduced blueberries to colonial settlers, who combined them with their English pie-making tradition almost immediately.
The first printed blueberry pie recipe appears in Amelia Simmons’s American Cookery (1796), the first cookbook published in the United States. Simmons’s version calls for wild blueberries, sugar, nutmeg, and a simple double crust. The formula has barely changed since. Blueberry pie was a staple New England dessert by the early 19th century, and spread to the Midwest as the frontier moved west.
Maine declared blueberry pie its official state pie in 2011. It’s an appropriate honor: Maine produces 90% of the United States’s commercial wild blueberries. Maine’s “wild lowbush” blueberries are smaller and more intense than cultivated varieties, and have roughly 4x the antioxidant content.
American blueberry consumption has doubled since 2000, largely because of expanded cultivation in the Pacific Northwest, Florida, and the Southeast. Cultivated “highbush” berries now comprise the majority of grocery-store blueberries. Wild berries remain the gold standard for pie-making. Both work; one is better. National Blueberry Pie Day on April 28 is the day to bake one.
A pie, if it is to be had cold, must be baked the day before.
The Perfect Blueberry Pie
Four rules from James Beard Award-winning bakers:
Use Mixed Berries
If you can, use both wild (small, intense) and cultivated (large, sweet) blueberries. Mixed-berry filling has better texture, better flavor, better color.
Add Lemon
Zest and juice of one lemon per 5-cup filling. Brightens the flavor, prevents the filling from tasting flat. Not optional.
Starch First
Toss cornstarch (or tapioca) into the berries BEFORE adding sugar. Prevents clumping, ensures even thickening. Pie-shop baker’s secret.
Chill the Dough
At least 30 minutes after mixing. 60 is better. Relaxes gluten; keeps butter cold; makes a tender crust. Non-negotiable.
Regional Blueberry Pies
Six American takes on the classic:
Did You Know?!
Blueberries are the state fruit of Maine AND New Jersey.
And the official state berry of several other states. The fight for “most blueberry-associated state” is surprisingly contested.
Wild vs. cultivated: 4x the antioxidants.
Wild lowbush blueberries contain roughly 4x the anthocyanins (antioxidant pigments) of cultivated highbush berries. Smaller fruit, denser nutrition.
The commercial blueberry industry is 100 years old.
Cultivated blueberries were developed in 1911 by Elizabeth Coleman White in New Jersey. Before then, all blueberries were wild. She essentially domesticated the fruit.
Blueberry pie is in Earth’s pop-culture DNA.
The 1945 song “Blueberry Hill” (Fats Domino’s version, 1956) made blueberries synonymous with Americana romance. Ray Charles, Louis Armstrong, Elvis all covered it.
Read & Bake
Pie: 300 Tried-and-True Recipes for Delicious Homemade Pie
Ken Haedrich · 2004
James Beard Award winner. The definitive modern American pie cookbook. Blueberry pie chapter alone is worth the price.
The New Blueberry Cookbook
U.S. Highbush Blueberry Council · 2012
Blueberry-focused cookbook with deep history chapters. Great gift for a committed blueberry-pie baker.
The Taste of Country Cooking
Edna Lewis · 1976
Not a pie book, but the blueberry pie recipe is legendary. Edna Lewis is a Southern cooking grandmaster; her blueberry pie is quietly perfect.
Pair It With
Vanilla ice cream. Warm pie + cold ice cream physics = magic.
Fats Domino’s “Blueberry Hill.” Classic.
Waitress (2007) — the film about a pie-shop waitress. Beautifully pie-obsessed.
Strong coffee. Pie with coffee is an American dessert institution.
Show The Pie!
Tag us @celebrationnation with #BlueberryPieDay. Best lattice of the year wins a feature.
How to celebrate
Make one; buy one; visit a pie shop:
- 🫐 Bake one. 2 hours start to finish. Cheaper than store-bought and roughly a thousand times better.
- 🏪 Visit a pie shop. Every region has at least one great one. The pie in a great pie shop is a revelation.
- 🌾 Try wild blueberries. Frozen wild blueberries (Wyman's is widely available) make a better pie than fresh cultivated ones, ironically.
- 🍨 Go à la mode. Vanilla ice cream. Non-negotiable with warm blueberry pie.
- 🧁 Let the crust rest. Make the dough, refrigerate for 30+ min before rolling. This is the difference between flaky and tough.
Celebration ideas by audience
For families
Family pie afternoon. Everyone gets a job: roll, fill, crimp. The kitchen smells right for hours after.
For kids
Lattice crust is an all-ages kid project. Weaving the strips is mesmerizing.
For couples
Pie + wine night. Blueberry pie pairs with Late Harvest Riesling or a quality tawny port.
At the office
A pie on the break-room counter on a Friday afternoon changes the week. Cut it; leave a knife.
At school
Pie-making as a class project teaches fractions, chemistry, and patience. Every kid remembers the day they made a pie in class.
In your community
Community pie bake-off with a panel of local judges. Entrance fee goes to charity. Every year gets bigger.
On your own
Mini pie in a ramekin for one. Bake tonight; eat half for dinner; save half for breakfast tomorrow.