Born from thrift, faith, and molasses, Pennsylvania’s most famous pie tells a deeper story about community identity, and why two neighboring counties still debate who baked it first.

On a crisp fall morning in Lancaster County, the scent of molasses drifts from a farmers market stand where a baker named Ruth Ann carefully arranges rows of dark, glistening shoofly pies. “My grandmother made this every Saturday,” she says, brushing crumbs from her apron. “If you grew up here, you know there’s a right way and a wrong way to make it, and don’t tell anyone from Lebanon otherwise.”

Just forty miles away, at a church bake sale in Lebanon, the same pie cools on folding tables. There’s less goo here, more crumb. Locals insist theirs is truer to the “dry-bottom” tradition. The debate isn’t mean-spirited. It’s affectionate, familiar, an edible border between two counties that helped shape the culture of South Central Pennsylvania.

The shoofly pie may look simple, crumb topping, gooey molasses layer, flaky crust, but its story is woven into the region’s history as tightly as the threads of a patchwork quilt.

Most food historians trace its roots to the late 1800s among Pennsylvania Dutch communities. Molasses, imported from the Caribbean and sold through Philadelphia’s ports, was one of the few affordable sweeteners at the time. Families living in rural Lancaster and Lebanon counties relied on pantry staples: flour, lard, eggs, and syrup. When sugar was scarce, molasses stood in.

According to the Pennsylvania Dutch Folklore Center, the earliest mention of “shoofly pie” appears around 1876, near the time of the Centennial Exhibition in Philadelphia. The pie was likely inspired by “centennial cake,” a molasses-based dessert served at the fair. It was sturdy, inexpensive, and, like the people who made it, practical.

Why “shoofly”? The name’s origins are half history, half humor. Some say it comes from Shoofly the Boxing Mule, a popular traveling circus animal of the era. Others believe it’s more literal: the pie’s sticky sweetness tended to attract flies while cooling on windowsills, prompting bakers to shoo them away.

Still, the debate over where the pie truly belongs, Lancaster or Lebanon, has simmered for more than a century.
Lancaster, with its deep Amish and Mennonite roots, claims the pie as a symbol of simple living and self-reliance. “We grew up with wet-bottom pies,” says John Fisher, owner of Bird-in-Hand Bakery. “The syrup sinks to the crust and caramelizes, it’s the Lancaster way.”

Lebanon County, on the other hand, prefers a drier, cake-like version. “Wet-bottom is messy,” laughs Mary Lou Krall, who has been baking at the Lebanon Farmers Market for forty years. “Our pie holds up on a plate. You can eat it for breakfast without needing a fork.”

Each side defends its method like a badge of honor. Lancaster’s version glistens like treacle and tastes almost like a pudding. Lebanon’s slices cleanly, closer to a crumb cake. Both have deep roots in church suppers, harvest fairs, and family kitchens where recipes were rarely written down, only handed from one generation to the next.

Yet beneath the friendly rivalry lies a shared truth: shoofly pie tells a story about how the 717 region preserves its identity through food. While the rest of the country debates pumpkin spice, South Central Pennsylvania holds fast to molasses.

The pie’s cultural staying power also owes much to the rise of tourism in Lancaster County. In the mid-20th century, as Amish country became a destination for city dwellers seeking “authentic” rural life, shoofly pie became the edible souvenir. Restaurants like Good ‘N Plenty and Miller’s Smorgasbord put it on every dessert tray. Bus tours left with boxed pies wrapped in wax paper. “It became a shorthand for Pennsylvania Dutch cooking,” says Dr. William Donner, an anthropologist at Kutztown University who studies regional folklore. “People bought the story as much as the flavor.”

In Lebanon County, though, the pie stayed personal. You’d find it at Grange halls, 4-H picnics, and family reunions. No neon signs, no bus tours. Just a quiet pride. “We don’t need to advertise it,” says Krall. “We just bake it.”

The differences reveal something larger about the two counties themselves. Lancaster leans outward. Its tourism industry draws millions. Lebanon leans inward, smaller, slower, rooted in tradition. Both are essential to the region’s character: one inviting the world in, the other keeping its soul intact.

Today, younger bakers are giving the old classic a modern twist. In Manheim, Rachel Weaver’s bakery swaps out molasses for locally produced maple syrup. In Palmyra, a café owner adds espresso powder to cut the sweetness. Even so, most locals agree that change only goes so far. “If it doesn’t have crumbs and a crust,” says Weaver, “it’s not shoofly pie.”

The pie also reminds us that cultural identity doesn’t have to be static, it can evolve while staying true to its roots. The same molasses that once symbolized thrift now represents continuity. In a region where small towns sometimes struggle to define themselves beyond the turnpike exits and outlet malls, shoofly pie is a shared language. It connects farm stands, church kitchens, and modern cafés across county lines.

It’s that a humble dessert can hold an entire region’s story in its sticky layers: faith, frugality, migration, and pride. When we talk about who makes it best, we’re really talking about who we are—and how we’ve managed to hold on to something that feels real in a fast-changing world.

So, next time you’re driving Route 72 or Route 322, take a small detour. Stop at a roadside market, buy a slice from each county, and taste for yourself. You might find that the rivalry isn’t about competition at all. It’s about belonging.

And just for fun—let’s settle this once and for all: