A pie supper is a social gathering where

pie A pie is a baked dish which is usually made of a pastry dough casing that contains a filling of various sweet or savoury ingredients. Sweet pies may be filled with fruit (as in an apple pie), nuts ( pecan pie), fruit preserves ( jam tart ...

s are

auction An auction is usually a process of Trade, buying and selling Good (economics), goods or Service (economics), services by offering them up for Bidding, bids, taking bids, and then selling the item to the highest bidder or buying the item from th ...

ed to raise money, often for a local school or fire department. Pie suppers provided a major source of funding for many of the region's

one-room school One-room schoolhouses, or One-room schools, have been commonplace throughout rural portions of various countries, including Prussia, Norway, Sweden, the United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, Ireland, Portugal, and Spa ...

s in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. At a traditional pie supper, women and girls would provide homemade pies to be auctioned, sometimes in boxes decorated with ruffles or bows. Along with the pie itself, the highest bidder won the privilege of sharing the pie with its maker, whose identity was concealed or known only to a handful of people. This prevented the offerings of less-popular or less-known girls from being neglected, earning more donations overall. Pie suppers had strong

courtship Courtship is the period wherein some couples get to know each other prior to a possible marriage or committed romantic, ''de facto'' relationship. Courtship traditionally may begin after a betrothal and may conclude with the celebration of marri ...

elements until the early twentieth century. Before birth control or child support laws, it was economically dangerous and socially unacceptable for an unmarried woman to interact with a young man her community didn't know. In rural America, where people were spread thinly, pie socials and boxed suppers were an acceptable way for young adults to widen their social circles. It also let a young man judge how well a possible wife could do her primary job -- cooking -- and gave the young woman some small idea of how well a potential husband could provide. Pie suppers commonly included a "beauty cake"

popularity contest A popularity contest is a real or attributed contest in which the sole criterion for winning is how many votes one gets, such that the winner is the most liked contestant. Although the phrase is often used disparagingly to suggest that some process ...

. Several girls would be nominated to receive the cake, and their respective admirers would lobby for votes, which were typically priced at a penny each. A box supper was a less common variation where the boxes auctioned off contained a chicken dinner, cookies, or a collection of food intended to be a surprise. Ozark box suppers were roughly equivalent to the box socials held in other regions.

References

* Cantrell, Patty
"Pies and People"
Retrieved on 2009-04-19. * Gilmore, Robert K. (1990)
"Box and Pie Suppers"''Ozark Baptizings, Hangings, and other Diversions: Theatrical Folkways of Rural Missouri, 1885-1910''
University of Oklahoma Press. pp. 103–110. {{ISBN, 0-8061-2270-6. Retrieved on 2009-04-19.

External links

Missouri culture Culture of Arkansas Oklahoma culture Dating Dining events Contexts for auctions

See also

References

External links