To add her own spin on the traditional peach pie, Fong replaced the sugar with a sweet-tea syrup, a nod to the drink served with almost every meal in the American south. Peaches became Georgia's official state fruit in 1995. The state's humid climate and clay soil provide optimal growing conditions. The fruit was first introduced by Franciscan monks to islands along Georgia's coast in the 16th Century, and were cultivated by member of the Cherokee Native American tribe about two centuries later. Georgia has long been known as the Peach State. The pie is also a nod to her best friend and housemate, who is from Georgia.
It's a dedication to the state of Georgia, which she said, "helped me come out of my shell". One of the pies most special to Fong is her Georgia Sweet Tea Peach Pie. Friends have been what makes the US her home, she said. "It's a very Singaporean thing where you don't really tell somebody that you love them… but you do it by feeding them," she said with a laugh. It was her way of saying "I love you" without actually articulating the words. It took her about five years to finish the project, given the time needed to research each state and experiment with her recipes, as well as taking a year's pause during the pandemic.įong would give each pie to friends she knew who came from the state. She said she needed something that would "tether" her to her chosen home.Ī year later, Fong started the "50 Pies, 50 States" project, creating and documenting her pie recipes on her website - one pie representing each US state, each one inspired by facts or ingredients for which the state was known. There was permanent residency to apply for, her grandmother died, and her housemate of seven years was moving out. After graduating in 2010, she moved to New York City to work in fashion. She moved to Savannah, Georgia, to study at the Savannah College of Art and Design.
"I feel like what better way for me to fully immerse myself and learn about the country that I've chosen to call home than through food? And I feel like there's nothing more American than pie."įong was born in Singapore and grew up in Indonesia and Hong Kong. Pies were likely invented in 2nd Century BCE by the ancient Egyptians or Romans, and popularized by the British in the 16th Century, but they are now synonymous with American cuisine, thanks to the Thanksgiving holiday and pop culture.Īmerica's obsession with pie is what inspired Stacey Mei Yan Fong, author of the new cookbook, 50 Pies, 50 States: An Immigrant's Love Letter To The United States Through Pie (released June 2023) to bake pie after pie to commemorate the country. "Bye-bye, Miss American Pie" – the Don McLean song that epitomised '70s America, may have been a melancholic one, but the buttery, crusty delight it references gives people much more cheer.
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