United States / Dessert

Key Lime Meringue Pie

Key lime pie is made of Key lime juice, eggs, condensed milk, and sugar in a pre-baked pie shell. The pie is then baked, and often topped with meringue or whipped cream. Other recipes (with slightly different ingredients) call for it to be chilled or frozen, using an unbaked Graham cracker crust. This makes it a popular summer dessert. The dish is named after the small Key limes (Citrus aurantifolia 'Swingle') that are naturalized throughout the Florida Keys. Their ferocious thorns make them less tractable and their thin yellowish rind makes them less shippable, but they are both tarter and more aromatic than the common Persian limes seen year-round in most U.S. grocery stores. Proper Key lime pie is made with canned sweetened condensed milk, since fresh milk was not a common commodity in the Florida Keys before modern refrigerated distribution methods. Key lime juice, unlike regular lime juice, is a pale yellow. As such, Key lime pies are also pale yellow. Green Key lime pies, such as the one in the opening scene of Natural Born Killers, are not authentic, and the green color is due to added food coloring. Many "Key lime" pies are made with standard Persian limes since they tend…