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The Melting Pot
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1800s-present - Southern settlers and rural home bakers using pantry staples and buttermilk
Buttermilk pie is a Southern pantry pie: inexpensive, tangy, and available when fruit is out of season. It sits near chess pie and other desperation pies, using buttermilk and a few staple ingredients to make a custard filling in a plain pie shell.
Difficulty
Easy
Prep time
15 minutes
Cook time
50 minutes
Total time
1 hour 5 minutes
Servings
8 servings
Region
The American South
Era introduced
1800s-present
Introduced by
Southern settlers and rural home bakers using pantry staples and buttermilk
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Buttermilk pie endures because it turns scarcity into comfort. With no berries to pick or pecans to crack, a cook could still make pie from sugar, eggs, butter, flour, buttermilk, and a crust. The filling bakes into a smooth custard with a gentle tang. It is often compared with chess pie, but buttermilk pie usually uses buttermilk for flavor and flour for thickening instead of cornmeal.
Drafted with buttermilk pie history from What's Cooking America (https://whatscookingamerica.net/buttermilkpie.htm), chess-pie comparison context from Southern Living (https://www.southernliving.com/food/desserts/pies/chess-pie-vs-buttermilk-pie), and depression-era pie context from Southern Made Simple (https://www.southernmadesimple.com/10-delicious-depression-era-pie-recipes/).
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