Word spread quickly among the fisherman and the cool tart pie became a staple on those fishing trips. One of these men, maybe even the one who made that inaugural pie, shared the recipe with some woman folk.
Perhaps he shared it with Aunt Sally! Until then everyone just knew how to make the pie. No fresh milk, no refrigeration, and no ice was available in the Keys until the arrival of tank trucks with the opening of the Overseas Highway in Because of this lack of milk, local cooks had to rely on canned sweetened condensed milk, which was invented in by Gail Borden.
Key lime may be the star ingredient of the key lime pie, but it is the sweetened condensed milk that makes it so smooth and delicious. Key limes are the pink flamingos of Florida food, and they are a celebrated part of local color. The key lime tree, which is native to Malaysia, probably first arrived in the Florida Keys in the s with the Spanish.
Key limes look like confused lemons, as they are smaller than a golf ball with yellow-green skin that is sometimes splotched with brown. They are also know as Mexican or West Indian limes.
When a hurricane in wiped out the key lime plantations in South Florida, growers replanted with Persian limes, which are easier to pick and to transport. Today the key lime is almost a phantom and any remaining trees are only found in back yards and their fruit never leave the Florida Keys. Key limes are also grown for commercial use in the Miami area. Rabior says his concoction uses orgeat, a floral almond syrup, for added complexity and less sweetness.
The way Sloan was introduced to Key lime pie sounds like something straight out of a Carl Hiaasen novel. He was working in a hamburger joint that baked its own buns and desserts. The head baker had narcolepsy and passed out one day on his way to the oven, breaking both wrists.
The owner promoted Sloan, with no baking experience, from the counter to head baker. Shortly after, a customer suggested he add a Key lime pie to the menu. By , acres of groves in the Upper Keys shipped 60, crates annually. As for the pie itself, Sloan credits another Sunshine State industry—fishing—with the creation of a proto version.
Sponge harvesters in the mids worked on boats for days at a time, toting foods that would last. Stirred and allowed to sit, the mixture gelled atop the bread. Sally might have known fishermen who shared their tricks, or maybe she already knew how to make lemon icebox pie and swapped in limes. Whatever the case, Sally had access to plenty of sweetened condensed milk because her employer was the millionaire ship supplier who built the Curry Mansion, now an Inn on Key West that still uses her recipe.
Key lime cultivation dropped off when Persian limes became more popular, and in , a devastating hurricane wiped out most of the commercial Key lime groves in Florida.
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