By AMY RICKER
Great Bend Post
No matter how you slice it, pie has been a favorite dessert of Americans for decades, and this Saturday, Jan. 23, the American Pie Council is inviting everyone to celebrate.
Pies can actually be traced back to 6000 B.C. to the ancient Egyptians during the New Stone Age. Back then the bakers incorporated nuts, honey and fruits in the bread dough.
Perkins General Manager Nicci Henderson says on average, the bakery bakes and tops 22 pies per day. If you take holidays into consideration, that number jumped up to 300 pies during the three days before, the day of, and the day after Thanksgiving.
“Christmas isn’t as big, but Thanksgiving is usually busy depending on what people have going on. This year was a little down because of COVID but it wasn’t nearly as down as we thought it would be. But during that week, we make an average of 300 pies and that’s on top of what we normally make,” explained Henderson.
Henderson says the most popular pie is a Banana Creme with Caramel Apple and French Silk pies taking second and third place. The least popular pie is peach. According to Henderson, the strangest request for a pie has to be Sour Cream Raisin.
And what does Perkins do with a pie that remains unsold?
“How our pies work is after we bake them, they go into the case upfront for one day to be sold. After that first day, we take them back into the pantry and that’s what we sell as pieces. After that, we have to throw them out. Luckily, we have gotten to a point where we have reduced our waste almost down to nothing. You have an occasional leftover pie that just didn’t sell. But that’s also why we do a Pie Monday. We bake a lot of pies for Saturday and Sunday and then what goes unsold is what we give out for free on Monday.”
Perkins will be celebrating National Pie Day on Jan. 23 by offering a free piece of pie with every entrée sold.