Pull your chair up close because I’ve got some tea to spill about one of the South’s most beloved pies. Who knew Kentucky Derby Pie was controversial? Well, if you leave off the “Kentucky” part and certain people find out about it, you can get yourself sued. I know, right?
Everybody knows we Southerners love our pecan pie. The sweet, sticky, buttery, nutty goodness is a quintessential flavor of our culture, and all manor of iterations of the flavor profile from sticky buns to pecan bars are delicious. At some point someone realized one could improve on perfection by adding chocolate to the mix, and the Kentucky Derby Pie was born.
History doesn’t record who is responsible for this culinary innovation, but the name itself has an interesting backstory. In 1950, the Kern family of Prospect, Kentucky had a restaurant called the Melrose Inn, and in this restaurant they made a pie they called a Derby-Pie. This pie was made with walnuts, chocolate, and super secret ingredients, and the Kern family trademarked the name, with a hyphen, when they ditched the restaurant to start a pie making business. The name Derby-Pie was actually pulled from a hat when the family was trying to decide what to call it on the menu.
Derby pie (without the hyphen) has been made by grandmothers across Kentucky, and the South, for quite some time. The traditional version is made with chocolate, pecans, and bourbon and is a fancy twist on the pecan pie. (Why anyone would substitute walnuts for pecans in a pie is beyond me. Walnuts are gross.)
Once the name Derby-Pie (with the hyphen) was trademarked, restaurants selling traditional derby pie (without the hyphen) became targets for lawsuits by the Kern family. So those restaurants had to change the name of their pecan-based pies to pecan-bourbon pies, chocolate-pecan pies, or Kentucky Derby pies. One restaurant owner who was sued in 1997 and again in 2007 took to calling his pies “I Can’t Call It Derby Pie” pie.
In 1986, Bon Appetit magazine ran a recipe for derby pie (without the hyphen) and was promptly sued by the Kerns. To prove their case that derby pie was a generic name for a chocolate and nut pie, they compiled newspaper stories, magazine articles, cookbooks, and menus from across the country featuring derby pie. The first judge agreed with them. The U.S. Court of Appeals, 6th Circuit did not feel the magazine had presented enough evidence to say “derby pie” was a generic term, and rather than go to trial, Bon Appetit settled out of court. When I did a Google search on “Bon Appetit derby pie,” I found the magazine now calls their version of the dessert Pecan Bourbon Pie.
The Kerns have definitely worked hard to defend their trademark over the decades. By 2016, according to Smithsonian Magazine, they had sued more than 25 times and were sending 2-3 cease-and-desist letters each week. In 2013, the Electronic Frontier Foundation inducted Kerns Kitchen into its Takedown Hall of Shame for sending cease-and desist letters to individual websites and sometimes those websites’ hosting companies for publishing recipes called derby pie (no hyphen).
Stephen’s mom makes the best Kentucky Derby pie. I have no idea how many she has made in her lifetime, but I’m certain it’s in the hundreds. She always had a pie or two in the freezer, and she made pies for all the neighbors every year at Christmas. She sent a Kentucky Derby pie to our house the day before Daniel was born. I wasn’t feeling well and didn’t eat my slice, and my sweet family saved it for me until I got home from the hospital and could eat it. Best slice of pie I’ve ever eaten.
Abby came home last weekend to cook for her Friendsgiving Dinner with her friends at school, and of course we made Grandmother Mason’s Sweet Potato Pudding and Grandmother Jacobs’s Kentucky Derby Pie. We made two pies so the Marietta crew could keep one too, and they were delicious. Abby was in charge of chocolating the pies (she made the filling), and she used a heavy hand with that task.
Grandmother Jacobs’s recipe (below) calls for using readymade pie shells, but we made our own piecrust, the all-butter version, and the homemade crust made an already yummy pie even better. It was delicious and flaky—even on the bottom. The ladies in the 1972 upside-down pie Crisco commercial we talked about a few weeks ago have nothing on me.
This recipe says it makes two pies, and with the pie shells it calls for that is true since they are a bit smaller than your standard pie plate. We used a piecrust (you can use the readymade one in the red box if you want) in my Pyrex pie plate so our filling was a little bit thinner in the final pies. The filling-to-crust ratio was still good, though. The filling has eggs in it, so it does rise a bit, and you’ll want to account for that when filling your crusts.
This recipe is quite easy and would be perfect for the novice and seasoned pie baker alike. I hope you will give it a try; it’s one of our family favorites. Just make sure you get the name right. It could be expensive if you don’t.
Grandmother Jacobs’s Kentucky Derby Pie
1/2 cup butter, melted
1 cup sugar
1 cup light Karo Syrup
4 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla
6 ounces chocolate chips
1 cup chopped pecans
2 9-inch pie shells
Heat oven to 350 degrees. Mix melted butter, sugar, and syrup in a medium bowl. Add in well-beaten eggs, one at a time. Stir in vanilla. Divide chocolate chips and pecans evenly in pie shells. Pour butter/sugar mixture evenly into both pie shells. Bake for 35 minutes.
Makes 2 pies.
Interesting Stuff From the Interwebs
The original Gerber Baby, Ann Turner Cook, celebrated her 95th birthday last weekend.
“Original "Gerber Baby" celebrates birthday”
Tomorrow is Thanksgiving Day, and from the Jacobs house to your house, we wish you a lovely Thanksgiving with your loved ones. Enjoy your feast and enjoy your family. The holidays are here!
Until next time,
Karla