50 Pies, 50 States: An Immigrant’s Love Letter to the United States Through Pie

After immigrating to the U.S., Fong embarked on a project to celebrate her new home and connect with others, baking pies to represent each state and documenting her progress online, where it garnered media attention. Turning the project into a cookbook, she has also added pies that characterize Singapore, Indonesia, and Hong Kong, where she grew up. There’s honey peach pie for Savannah, representing her college experience, and a scallion bagel pie for Brooklyn, where she now lives. Following those, in alphabetical order, there’s a pie for each state, with information about the state and an explanation of how the recipe suits it. This is an interesting mix of sweet and savory recipes, some never before seen, such as artichoke pie for California, snickerdoodle pie for Connecticut, and a Boston cream as a pie not a cake. Standard crust recipes are given and assigned to the pies, and the index is arranged so readers can find pies by type, title, or geography.