My, my — it's American pie

5) Chess pie
This very simple curd-like pie is a Southern favorite, made with everyday staples from the kitchen larder: eggs, sugar, butter, and flour — the pie’s equivalent to the pound cake.

The origin of chess pie is a little uncertain, but there are many folk tales associated with it. One is that it used to be called “chest” pie, because it was made with so much sugar that it could be stored in a chest. Another was that when Virginia plantation cooks were asked what kind of pie they were making, they’d answer “jes pie.”  A similar story reminisces that it was a creative Southern housewife who made the pie for her husband, and when asked what she was making, she answered the same. But it most likely comes from the 17th-century English cheese pie (cheese is the English word for curd). Cheese pie was a common name used to describe a pie that had a curd-like texture, but didn't actually contain cheese — not unlike English lemon curd, a filling used to make tarts.

The many variations of chess pie may include chocolate, lemon or vanilla as flavoring, with some recipes calling for cornmeal and vinegar. Buttermilk is another common ingredient. According to the Pie of the Month Club, an online group that sends out monthly postcards to a group of friends with pie cartoons and recipes, chess pie was a favorite of Lyndon B. Johnson. The site also includes a recipe for Stack Pie: several chess pies stacked on top of each other and glued together with caramel frosting. Craig Claiborne included a recipe for a classic vanilla chess pie in his cookbook “Southern Cooking” (1987), but lemon chess seems to be the perennial favorite.

4) Olallieberry pie
A tradition up and down the California coast, this pie is made with the olallieberry, a cross between the loganberry and youngberry, a fruit developed in Oregon by the U.S. Department of Agriculture in 1949. It is not completely unlike a blackberry, in fact the Native American name for berry is olallie, but it is slightly more tart — think a combination of the sweeter blackberry and the tartness of a raspberry, and perfect for making pies.

Duartes Tavern, just south of San Francisco and a few miles inland from the coast, is known for their olallieberry pie, and have a regular following of people who make the detour just for a welcome slice. Down the coast in San Luis Obispo county, in the small town of Cambria, the Linn family created a whole business out of the olallieberry, farming them since the late 1970s and soon after starting a pie business. Linn's originally became famous for their double-crusted ready-to-bake olallieberry pies, and they now ship prepared pies and preserves across the country.

Being a coastal gal myself, I'm partial to a family recipe: a deep-dish olallieberry pie with a brown sugar crumb topping, served warm with vanilla ice cream.

3) Sugar cream pie (aka Indiana cream pie, Hoosier sugar cream pie, finger pie)
Here's a pie that capitalizes on the dairy-rich Midwest (and is also attributed to the Amish) and can be found at almost every diner and cafeteria in Indiana.

Made with creamed butter, brown sugar (or maple syrup) and just a sprinkling of flour to form the bottom layer, it is then filled with a vanilla-flavored cream and baked. Brandy and nutmeg are fairly common additions. In some cases it was known as finger pie because the filling was stirred with a finger rather than a spoon while baking, to prevent breaking the bottom crust.

Texas Dirt, a banana pudding pie with crushed Oreos, is said to be a descendent of the sugar cream pie. Further distillations can be found as buttermilk pie (or magnolia pie), sour cream pie and banana cream pie. Even pecan pie is thought to descend from this Midwestern favorite.