Wyoming does not have an official state pie. I know this because I went looking, half-expecting to find some obscure 1970s legislative resolution naming one, and came up empty. We have a state tree (the plains cottonwood), a state bird (the western meadowlark), even a state fossil and a state dinosaur. But pie? Nothing. Which is a shame, because plenty of other states have figured this out. Georgia claims pecan. Florida has key lime, and put it in statute. Vermont went with apple. Somewhere along the way Wyoming missed the memo, and so the question sits there unanswered: if we did pick one, what would it be?
I’ve been chewing on this ever since I finished the first leg of the Wyoming Pie Trail, where I drove around the state eating my way through the best pie shops I could find. You cannot spend that many miles thinking about pie without eventually asking the bigger question. So consider this the debate I promised myself I’d have out loud. I’m not going to hand down a verdict — I don’t think it’s my call to make alone — but I’ve got opinions, and I want yours.
What Actually Makes a “State Pie”?
Before we start throwing candidates around, we need a rule, because otherwise everybody just names their favorite pie and we get nowhere. Here’s mine: a state pie should say something true about the place. It should be a pie you could hand to somebody from Ohio and, in one bite, tell them something real about Wyoming — the country, the climate, the way people here actually live and eat.
That rule matters, because it immediately separates the pies we love from the pies that mean something. A lot of great pie is universal. A state pie has to be specific. It has to come from here in some way that another state couldn’t honestly claim. Keep that in mind as we go, because it’s the whole game.
The Contenders
Chokecherry: The Most Wyoming Answer There Is
If you want a pie that could only be Wyoming, you start with the chokecherry. These are wild, native, and stubborn — dark little stone fruits that grow along fencelines and creek bottoms and draws all over the state, tart enough to pucker your whole face if you bite one raw. You don’t farm chokecherries. You go out with a bucket in late summer and pick them, the same way people here have been doing for generations, and then you fight with them a little to turn them into something.
That’s the case for chokecherry, and it’s a strong one. It’s foraged, not bought. It’s tied to a genuine Wyoming tradition — I’ve made the argument before that chokecherry jelly is our most iconic preserve, and everything true about the jelly is true about the pie. The flavor is intense, dark, and a little wild, which frankly describes a lot of Wyoming. If “says something true about the place” is the standard, chokecherry might already be leading.
Huckleberry: The Western Wyoming Champion
Then there’s huckleberry, and if you live anywhere near the mountains out west, you’re probably already yelling at your screen. Huckleberries are the other great wild-foraged berry of this country — high, cold, and impossible to cultivate at scale, which is exactly why people get so obsessive about them. A good huckleberry pie tastes like a mountain in August. It has that high-country feel baked right into it.
The huckleberry argument is a lot like the chokecherry argument: wild, native to the region, deeply tied to the land. The knock on it is that huckleberry isn’t ours alone — Idaho and Montana would both fight us for it, hard. But the same wild, can’t-buy-it-in-bulk quality that makes chokecherry feel so Wyoming makes huckleberry a serious contender. If it’s got a weakness, it’s that we’d be sharing custody with the neighbors.
Rhubarb: Grandma’s Pie
Now for the sentimental favorite. Rhubarb grows here. It grows everywhere here — in gardens that have no business supporting anything, in dry yards, in the corner of a plot where nothing else survives the wind and the short season. It’s tough and reliable in a way that feels distinctly Wyoming, and just about everybody who grew up in this state has a grandmother or a great-aunt who made rhubarb pie, usually from a plant that had been in the same spot for forty years.
The nostalgic case for rhubarb is powerful, and I don’t want to wave it off. A state pie you can grow in your own yard, from a plant your family’s been tending for generations, has real emotional weight. The only ding is that rhubarb isn’t exclusively ours — it grows across the northern half of the country. But the relationship Wyoming gardeners have with it, coaxing something sour and beautiful out of hard ground, feels like it counts for a lot.
Sour Cream Lemon: The Diner Underdog
Here’s the one that surprises people. Sour cream lemon pie is a small-town Wyoming diner staple, the kind of pie that shows up in a spinning glass case at a cafe on Main Street in a town of nine hundred people. It’s simple. It’s tart and creamy and a little old-fashioned, and it’s not trying to impress anybody. And that, honestly, might be the most Wyoming thing about it.
Nobody’s writing magazine features about sour cream lemon pie. It’s not glamorous or wild or foraged. But it’s beloved, quietly and durably, at exactly the kind of unpretentious diner counter where a lot of the best eating in this state actually happens. The argument for sour cream lemon isn’t about the ingredients — it’s about the culture. It’s the pie of the Wyoming diner, and the Wyoming diner is a real and worthy institution. Don’t count the underdog out.
Apple: The Sentimental Vote (and Why I’m Skeptical)
And then there’s apple, which a lot of people would vote for on pure reflex. I get it. Apple pie is comfort, tradition, Americana, the pie everybody’s grandmother made — including, sure, plenty of Wyoming grandmothers.
But here’s where my rule bites. Wyoming isn’t apple country. We don’t have orchards to speak of; our climate is too high and too harsh for it. An apple pie made in Cheyenne is made with apples trucked in from somewhere with a gentler growing season, which means apple pie doesn’t tell you anything specific about us. It tells you something about America. And a state pie that could just as easily be the state pie of Indiana isn’t really doing its job. Apple’s a wonderful pie. It’s just not a Wyoming argument.
Where I Land (Sort Of)
So I’m not going to declare a winner, because I genuinely think this is a debate the whole state should get to have. But I’ll tell you which way I lean. When I hold every one of these up against my rule — does it say something true about Wyoming? — the two that keep rising to the top are the wild ones. Chokecherry and huckleberry both carry something you can’t fake and can’t import: a berry you have to go find, in country that’s genuinely ours, tied to a way of eating that’s been happening here a long time. Chokecherry might edge it out for being harder to share with our neighbors. But I could be talked into huckleberry on a good day in the Tetons.
The others aren’t wrong, though. That’s what makes this fun. Rhubarb has the family history. Sour cream lemon has the diner soul. Even apple has tradition on its side, even if it doesn’t have geography. There’s no bad answer here — just answers that mean different things.
Make Your Case at Home
The best way to argue about pie, of course, is to bake one. If this has you itching to test a contender in your own kitchen, you’ll want a proper dish to do it in — a classic ceramic pie dish or a good glass pie plate will carry you through decades of Sunday pies. If you’re just getting into pie-making and want to build some real range, a well-loved pie cookbook is worth every penny, and a sturdy pie server means you can actually get that first slice out in one piece.
Okay, Now You Vote
Here’s where I hand it over. Wyoming doesn’t have an official state pie, but there’s no reason we can’t settle it ourselves — one loud, delicious, slightly ridiculous argument at a time. So tell me: what’s your Wyoming state pie? Chokecherry? Huckleberry? Are you a rhubarb loyalist ready to fight for grandma? A diehard for the sour cream lemon at some cafe I need to know about?
Tag @wyofood on Instagram or message Wyo Food on Facebook with your pick — bonus points for a photo of the actual slice. I’m going to tally the votes, and if there’s enough of a groundswell for one of these, we might just crown an unofficial state pie right here on the blog. And keep your fork ready: Part Two of the Wyoming Pie Trail is coming, and I’m counting on your submissions to help me build it.
Wyoming, make your case.
— Sean