What's a Hubig's Pie

Updated 21-June-2010
Happy MidSummer! Look who's on Da Twittah: @HubigsPies!.

I've noticed that people come to YatPundit occasionally because they Google the term "Hubig's Pies." When I originally wrote the subtitle of the blog as "Politics, Funky Music, and Hubig's Pies," I pretty much assumed that everyone knew what a Hubig's Pie was, or wouldn't really care.

Hubig's Pies are a fried turnover, originally created in Dallas by Simon Hubig. Hubig was a German immigrant who set up his first bakery in Dallas. When he saw the popularity of his hand-held fried pies, Hubig expanded operations into Houston, New Orleans, Birmingham, even into Illinois and Georgia. Simon Hubig's dreams of going national were crushed in the stock market crash of 1929. Hubig was forced to sell his all of his bakeries and warehouses except for the one in New Orleans. Hubig also had to take on a partner, which is how the Bowman family came to be the current owners of the bakery.

Prior to the storm, Hubig's made three main items: hand-held fried pies, individual deep-dish pies, and nine-inch "family pies."

This is the classic fried Hubig's pie. It's cut from the same half-moon die they've used on Dauphine street for over 80 years. The pies are fried, smothered in sugar icing, packaged, and sent to over 3500 retail outlets in southern Louisiana. They come in a number of flavors, including apple, lemon, peach, pineapple, chocolate, cherry, coconut, blueberry, banana, blackberry, strawberry, and sweet potato.

Some of the flavors are strictly seasonal, such as strawberry, sweet potato, and the ever-elusive blackberry. Hubig's only makes these when they can get fresh local fruit, and if the crop isn't running well enough, they'll skip them if they have to.

Before the storm, Hubig's sold individual deep-dish baked pies.  These used the same fillings as the fried pies, but had less sugar on them.  Since the storm, however, the bakery did not re-start production of either size of the baked pies.  While not as popular (and only marginally healthier) than the fried pies, the deep-dish pies nonetheless had a strong following. Mr. Hubig didn't start out thinking he would be the king of hand-held fried pies in the south. His original plan was to sell regular-sized "family" pies. The Dauphine St. factory still makes nine-inch pies in a number of flavors. These were served as dessert in a number of New Orleans restaurants, and were sold at many local groceries, as well as local Wal-Mart stores.

Hubig's Pies are a local institution and tradition. You can see their delivery fans all over town, bringing out flats of the freshly-baked pies to stores of all kinds.  And of course, they're Saints fans!

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