I can't believe that no one has yet mentioned SWEET POTATO PIE. Must be due to the overwhelmingly "caucasian" (i.e., pigmentally-challenged) population hereabouts.

Sweet potato pie is very similar to pumpkin pie ~ same seasonings, etc. The texture is perhaps a bit heavier, the color slightly darker, and the flavor is just a little different. The main difference is that, traditionally, African-American people have used yams (sweet potatoes) rather than pumpkins to make their orange-colored custard pies. Soul food, in other words.

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My maternal grandmother was an immigrant from Alsace-Lorraine, and was an incredible pastry chef whose apple pies were invariably pronounced the best-ever-tasted by just about everyone fortunate enough to have enjoyed a sample. Her Irish-immigrant husband was famously insistent upon being "American" and forgetting about "the other side" (the Old Country, or in their case, old countrIES), so he insisted that she make her fabulous Apple Streudel in a round pie pan, transforming it from a European delicacy into an "All-American" apple pie.

Grandma's apple filling was very good of course, just sweet enough, but her pie crust was what really made it special. She always talked about how it would be even better if Grandpa would let her use lard, but she made do with Crisco (solid shortening). The trick, apparently, is to handle the dough as little as possible to keep it light rather than tough. Even her bottom crust was flaky! (Yes, that is possible.)

My mother never learned her mother's knack for pastry, but fortunately, one of my (male) cousins studied with Grandma, successfully, and can now make the second-best apple pie in known human history.

I can't say I have any single favorite kind of pie. I like apple, of course, but since no regular-type top crust can ever measure up to Grandma's, I usually opt for the crumb-topped or "Dutch" apple pie.

I am also quite partial to mince pie, and can't understand why so many people I know claim to dislike it. To me, nothing else tastes so much like Christmas as that good old mincemeat filling. I bought and "baked" a frozen Mrs. Smith's mince pie over the weekend and was very pleased with it; the filling was tastier and freer of aftertaste than the "Nonesuch" brand canned mincemeat available for making a more "homemade" mince pie (i.e., canned filling in a homemade shell).