NATIONAL DAYFOOD & DRINK

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.

APR28

Wednesday, April 28Every year on April 28

days to go

Vibe: Purple & Buttery
Also on Apr 28: World Day for Safety and Health at Work · Global Pay It Forward Day · BraveHearts Day
Hashtag: #NationalBlueberryPieDay

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Ways 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.

Make it your kind of celebration

Family
Family pie afternoon. Everyone gets a job: roll, fill, crimp. The kitchen smells right for hours after.
Kids
Lattice crust is an all-ages kid project. Weaving the strips is mesmerizing.
Couples
Pie + wine night. Blueberry pie pairs with Late Harvest Riesling or a quality tawny port.
Office
A pie on the break-room counter on a Friday afternoon changes the week. Cut it; leave a knife.
School
Pie-making as a class project teaches fractions, chemistry, and patience. Every kid remembers the day they made a pie in class.
Community
Community pie bake-off with a panel of local judges. Entrance fee goes to charity. Every year gets bigger.
Just me
Mini pie in a ramekin for one. Bake tonight; eat half for dinner; save half for breakfast tomorrow.

Plan ahead

National Blueberry Pie Day is observed on April 28 every year. Here is where it lands for the next ten years, handy for planners, marketers and party people.

2026Tue, Apr 28this year

2027Wed, Apr 28

2028Fri, Apr 28

2029Sat, Apr 28

2030Sun, Apr 28

2031Mon, Apr 28

2032Wed, Apr 28

2033Thu, Apr 28

2034Fri, Apr 28

2035Sat, Apr 28

2036Mon, Apr 28

Add to my calendar (repeats yearly)

Fast facts

Yes, North America

2011

2027April 28, 2027

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.

Read the full story

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.

Four rules from James Beard Award-winning bakers:

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 song "Blueberry Hill" (Fats Domino's version, 1956) made blueberries synonymous with Americana romance. Ray Charles, Louis Armstrong, Elvis all covered it.