In 2017, I borrowed Stella Parks BraveTart: Iconic American Desserts from my local library. When I reached the Key Lime Pie recipe with Park’s history, I shook my head “no”, shut the book and returned it to the library. That cookbook was not added to my collection. The Key Lime pie recipe passed down in my Florida family has a pastry — not graham cracker — crust. My most recent library preview When Southern Women Cook from America’s Test Kitchen referenced both arguments. I bought the cookbook.
In high school, I moved to Miami to live with my father’s sister and mother. Their backyard was ringed with fruit trees: red and yellow grapefruit, Key lime, mangos, banana, avocado… there were so many tropical fruit trees, I know I’m forgetting some. I was taught to make banana bread by waiting for the hand of bananas hung in the garage to turn completely black and pulp oozed from the over ripe bananas. In the morning before school, I’d wander out to the grapefruit trees and debate between pink and yellow. I’d cut the day’s choice in half and give half to my paraplegic, wheelchair-bound grandmother. We’d eat our halves with specialty grapefruit spoons — a triangular bowl with a serrated front to dig out the individual sections. The grapefruit spoons had moved with my grandmother when they left Key West.
My grandmother wasn’t the Conch. Her roots ran deep into Virginia to pre-Revolutionary times. After graduating college, she accepted a teaching position in Key West. In 1924, Key West could only be visited by boat — an adventurous choice for the young woman. A mutual love of music brought my grandparents together in Key West. My grandfather born in the late 1800s in Key West was the Conch. A designation given to someone born in Key West. How to make Key Lime pie was handed down in my grandfather’s family.
When I was in high school and the Key limes ripened in the backyard, my aunt taught me how to make Key Lime pie. Like when I learned to make biscuits, fried chicken, etc with my stepmother; Key Lime pie making was a hands-on oral tradition. I went out to the backyard and picked dozens of ripe Key limes off the bush-like, thorny tree. There was no sense in leaving ripe fruit to rot. We could use it in other ways or give away any extra limes. I then split the limes and juiced them. We made and par-baked a pastry crust. While the pastry crust was in the oven, we combined eggs, sweetened condensed milk and Key Lime juice together. Later we topped with meringue and browned it in the oven. We never once referenced a recipe. A day or two later, I asked my aunt to write down the recipe. She thought back through and gave guesstimate amounts but reminded me to just taste for the right amount of tartness when I added the lime juice.
A few years ago, I was watching Cook’s Country on PBS. They reviewed the Key Lime Pie history from David L. Sloan’s Key Lime Pie: An intriguing History of Key West’s Native Dessert. I immediately purchased the book. on pg 25, he writes:
A great thing about foods is they evolve. Claiming that a dessert didn’t exist until it had a published recipe to validate it presents several problems and does a disservice to history.
His book goes on to detail oral histories, which show the evolution of Key Lime pie from a fisherman’s pudding to its pie status. On pg 55 when talking about the crust for a Key Lime pie he says:
Talk to any Key West native who grew up enjoying lime pie prepared with a pre-1930’s family recipe, and it will become crystal clear that a pastry crust was the original Key lime crust on the island.
My family recipe has been handed down since at least 1924 when my grandparents met in Key West. It calls for a pastry crust.
A few years, this video was posted by Youff. Glen talks about Aunt Sally, which is the theory David Sloan takes a deep dive into with his book. Glen also mentions the Borden recipe theory, which Stella Parks credits. These are the two sides in the Key Lime pie origin debate.The big surprise for me in the video was August 25, 1939 Miami Herald recipe submission by my Grandmother, Mrs. L.E. Blackwell of The Blackwell family recipe.
Hurricane Andrew destroyed my Aunt’s Key Lime tree and most of the fruit bearing trees in her yard. The house was sold a couple of decades ago after my aunt’s death. It has been McMansioned. My generation is now the oldest and none of us live in Florida. But my Florida family history lives on in the archives of The Miami Herald as The Blackwell Family Key Lime pie recipe.
