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A pie is a baked dish that is generally encased in a pastry dough shell and filled with a variety of sweet or savoury ingredients. Fruit (apple pie), nuts (pecan pie), brown sugar (sugar pie), sweetened vegetables (rhubarb pie), or richer fillings based on eggs and dairy can all be found in sweet pies (as in custard pie and cream pie). Meat (as in a steak pie or a Jamaican patty), eggs and cheese (quiche), or a combination of meat and vegetables can all be found in savoury pies (pot pie).

The crusts of pies characterise them. The pastry lines the baking dish in a filled pie (also known as a single-crust or bottom-crust pie), and the filling is placed on top of the dough but left open. The filling is at the bottom of the dish in a top-crust pie, which is then topped with dough or another covering before baking.

The filling is entirely contained in the pastry shell of a two-crust pie. Shortcrust pastry is the most common type of pastry used for pie crusts, however baking powder biscuits, mashed potatoes, and crumbs can also be used.

Pies come in a range of sizes, from little bite-size to large multi-serving pies.

The magpie, a “bird noted for gathering odds and ends in its nest,” maybe the origins of the term “pie”; the connection might be because Medieval pies also featured a variety of animal meats, such as chickens, crows, pigeons, and rabbits. “…beef, beef suet, capons, hens, both mallard and teal ducks, rabbits, woodcocks, and large birds such as herons and storks, plus beef marrow, hard-cooked egg yolks, dates, raisins, and prunes,” according to one 1450 recipe for “grete pyes,” which is suggested as support for the “magpie” etymology.

Early pies were galettes, which were flat, round, or freeform crusty cakes with a crust of crushed oats, wheat, rye, or barley with honey inside. The tomb walls of Pharaoh Ramesses II, who ruled from 1304 to 1237 BC, in the Valley of the Kings, provide witness to the evolution of these galettes into an early sweet pastry or dessert. A recipe for chicken pie was inscribed on a tablet in Sumer sometime around 2000 BC.

Pie pastry is thought to have originated with the ancient Greeks. Like as tiny pastries stuffed with fruit, sweetmeats are mentioned in Aristophanes’ (5th century BC) comedies. The type of pastry used is unknown, but the Greeks clearly distinguished the pastry-cook trade from that of the baker. (A pastry is made by adding fat to a flour–water mixture.)

The Romans used a simple pastry consisting of flour, oil, and water to cover cooked meats and fowls, keeping the juices in. The Roman method of wrapping “…birds or hams with dough” has been described as more of an attempt to keep the meat from drying out while baking than a modern-day pie.

(The coating was not supposed to be eaten; it served as a substitute for puff paste.) Tiny pasties containing eggs or small birds were among the minor dishes offered at banquets and were made with a richer pastry that was intended to be consumed. The first documented mention of a Roman pie is for a rye dough filled with a goat’s cheese and honey combination.

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