Grab a slice while celebrating Pi Day in Waterloo region: Jasmine Mangalaseril
March 14 is Pi Day. Although many math-leaning sorts will celebrate the result of dividing a circle's circumference by its radius, it's a day everyone can mark with pie.
The date, first celebrated in the United States in 1988, lined up perfectly with the mathematical constant: 3.141592653…
In Waterloo, when Henry and Dianne de Jong opened Sweet and Savoury Pie Company, they didn't realize how important Pi Day was in the Region.
"Of course, with two big universities, colleges, the Perimeter Institute, you've got a lot of math and science-oriented and -focused careers and studies and that sort of thing," said Dianne de Jong.
They held their first Pi Day in 2015.
"People were getting pies. We were lined up out the door so they could be home at 9:26 and be eating that pie at 9:26 and 53 seconds, because that's the number," added Henry de Jong.
There is no official flavour or type of pie to celebrate the mathematical constant, as Henry de Jong explained.
"People just want pie on Pi Day. Some people look at it and go, 'I'll have a quiche for breakfast. I'm going to have a meat pie for lunch. I'll have something for dinner, but I'm going to have pie for dessert.' Or they'll do pie, pie, pie."
A world of pies
A picture perfect latticed cherry pie or golden domed chicken pot pie may immediately jump to mind, but given pie is simply a food with a crust, the world of pie is as varied as its fillings.
With the Middle East home to a cradle of civilization, some of the world's oldest pies can be found there. One is sfiha (or sfeeha), which is a round flatbread topped with chopped or minced lamb or beef, that is mildly seasoned with pepper, onions, parsley and tomatoes.
"It's sort of like a mini pie. We put meat and spread it on top," explained Adam Alhares, who along with his family, owns Kitchener's Damask Resto-Market. "It's usually, flat and more in a circle shape. And we have many like variations of it. Some people put pomegranate. Some people put lemon with it."
Along with manaeesh (a flatbread similar to sfiha, sometimes topped with za'atar), Damask also prepares other oven-baked fatayer (savoury handheld pies). Their boat-shaped pies are filled with cheese or mhammara (or muhammara), a ground mixture made of nuts, red bell peppers, pomegranate molasses and breadcrumbs. And their pyramid-like pies are stuffed with spinach.
While Damask's spinach fatayer feature crimped seams, Melina's spinach and cheese-bundled spanakopita are a Mediterranean relative.
"Spanakopita is actually spinach pie in Greek," said Nathalia Zuniga, who owns Melina's in Kitchener with her husband Mel Ioannou. "Spanakopita is layers of filo stuffed with spinach and feta cheese…it's very traditional in Greece and in Cyprus. [It's] served all the time."
At Melina's, spanakopita is made into baked filo-wrapped triangle of varying sizes, from cocktail-sized to larger handhelds for a hearty snack or light lunch. They'll also be made into cushions and served with sides for a meal.
The Greek-Latino fusion takeaway also makes several Central American and South American sweet and savoury pies. Their staff, from Mexico, Chile, Colombia, Venezuela, and Nicaragua, prepare pastelitos and empanadas as they would at home.
Most are half-moon shaped (but Chilean ones look more like a rectangular pocket), using either corn meal or wheat flour for the envelope that holds their fillings. Some are deep fried while others are baked.
Their sweet pies can be filled with tropical fruit, dulce de leche or coconut, while their savoury offerings are filled with any combination of beef, chicken, potatoes, ham.
"The Colombians have mashed potatoes mixed with the beef or chicken, and a little bit of cumin makes them stand out. The Venezuelan is similar, but the difference is that they are not stuffed with potatoes," said Zuniga. "When it comes to taste...they're both delicious, but completely different taste, even though they look very similar."
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