Brow Beat

Should Pie Be Square Instead of Round?

Dan Pashman, the author of the new book Eat More Better: How To Make Every Bite More Delicious and the host of the podcast The Sporkful, holds a lot of unconventional views about food. I recently invited Dan to join me in the kitchen to test out one of his more outlandish theories: that pie should be square instead of circular. Dan explains his hypothesis in Eat More Better:

Bottom outer crust and vertical side crust are superior, because of their positioning and thickness. They’re ideally suited to absorb flavor from the fillings while maintaining toothsinkability.

Therefore, the best bite of a slice of pie is where vertical side crust, bottom outer crust, and fillings come together:

An illustration of a pie viewed from the side with an arrow pointing at the crust.

Illustration by Alex Eben Meyer courtesy of Simon & Schuster

So how can we construct a pie that has more of these precious morsels? By making pie SQUARE.

Is Dan right? Should we all throw out our pie plates right now and replace them with square cake pans? Watch the video above to find out the winner in our round vs. square bake-off.