Tomato Pie: A Slice of the Not-So-Authentic South
by Pamela Jouan
While it may seem as old as cast iron and kudzu, the tomato pie we know today has a shorter history than expected, and its story is one of evolution, adaptation, and deep Southern pride.
You could think of South Carolina's tomato pie like the family friend who eventually got their own seat at the holiday table—not truly yours, but close enough to claim. Or maybe like a local ghost story: it started with a kernel of truth but evolved over time into a myth that everyone knows, though no one can quite trace its origins. One thing is clear: tomato pie, as we know it today, is not a legacy Southern recipe. It doesn't appear in the well-worn pages of Charleston Receipts or any of the other iconic cookbooks of the region. It simply wasn't here. Until it was.
Ask around Charleston and its sea island neighbors, and you’ll hear one common thread: it started with the tomato sandwich. That drippy, salty, sun-warmed summer classic—thick slabs of tomato, Duke’s mayo, hunks of white bread—was a ritual long before pie entered the picture.
For Chef Jonathan Kronsberg of Rosebank Farms, it’s crystal clear. “The tomato sandwich was the thing—not the pie,” he said. But over time, as chefs and home cooks tried to make good use of imperfect produce—or maybe the PR team at the mayonnaise company was looking for a home in a warm pie crust—tomato pie found its way into kitchens and onto menus.
“My first exposure to tomato pie was in the late ‘80s,” said Tanya Gurrieri, owner of Salthouse Catering. “I grew up on James Island, and we ate tomato sandwiches—never pie. I couldn’t find it in my cookbooks either. Tomato pie started as more of a restaurant or bakery dish. Places like Upper Crust in West Ashley and Savory Market in Riverland Terrace made it popular. In my opinion, it was the Tomato Shed Café on Johns Island that really put it on the map.”
Indeed, it was on the grounds of Ambrose Family Farm that tomato pie began to shift from a whisper of an idea into something craveable. “I never ate tomato pie growing up,” admitted Babs Ambrose, owner of the farm and iconic Tomato Shed Café. “It came about because my friend Maisy, a fantastic cook from the mid-state, started working with me. We were frustrated by all the bruised tomatoes no one would buy—so we started cooking them.”
Maisy’s pie wasn’t a showy, deep-dish affair. “We don’t use a full crust,” said Ambrose. “It’s a very thin Bisquick crust on the bottom only. The stars are the tomatoes—ripe, juicy, sliced, with onions–not sweet, sliced thin, and an obscene amount of basil. The topping is Duke’s mayo and cheddar cheese. It’s wet, messy—and that’s the charm.”
Tomatoes, of course, have long defined Johns Island and the surrounding areas. There used to be hundreds of acres of tomatoes, and the Stono packing shed where they were shipped from—one of the biggest in the world—still stands right behind the Tomato Shed Café. “Most of the farms here have excellent soil for growing tomatoes: sandy loam. They don’t have hard pans underneath them so the water drains well. Our weather was perfect for filling a seasonal market that needed boosting,” she explained.
Ambrose estimates that the great tomato era ran from the 1980s to roughly 2015 before a sea change. A slate of the original farmers passed on with no family to continue the legacy. Weather conditions shifted. Scientists began developing more resilient plants to improve the length of the growing season, starting it earlier than South Carolina in other places. “It happens,” she shrugs it off. Big-production tomato farming moved on, but the pie stayed.
Today, Saltwater Catering partners with Boone Hall Farms and Willie’s Roadside Market to bring a fresh take on this new tradition as well as other Southern treasures. “We’ve done a lot of weddings on Boone Hall’s property over the past ten years,” Gurrieri said. “When their market closed a few years ago, and we had started our gourmet to-go program during COVID, the partnership just made sense.”
Their versions of Southern dishes are chef-driven and made from scratch. “We hang our hat on local,” she said. “When we can, we use Boone Hall tomatoes in our pie. Our pastry chef handcrafts an all-butter crust, which really sets ours apart.”
There’s a practical art to the process, too. “You have to dry the tomatoes out with salt and paper towels to prevent a soggy crust,” Gurrieri explained. “We add a layer of panko at the bottom as a barrier, and we par-bake the pies so customers can finish them at home.”
But not everyone follows the same script. Helen Legare-Floyd of Legare Farms—nine generations deep in family agriculture—takes a more rustic approach. “We chop our tomatoes instead of slicing them,” she said. “When you slice, the skins can pull out with each bite. Chopping makes it easier to eat.”
The Legare pie recipe is simple and accessible: a cup of mayo, a cup each of cheddar and mozzarella, two cups of tomatoes, and a crust. “It’s what we sell on our rolling market bus,” said Legare-Floyd. “My husband makes them. Sometimes at home we add onions, basil, or other fresh herbs, and brown some of our farm sausage to make it into a whole meal.”
But her memories of tomato pie go deeper. “My great-aunt Lena and Aunt Inez—called Nana—who used to live together on the farm, made a green tomato mince pie,” she recalled. “We’d go out into the fields and pick the green tomatoes when the season started, and they’d chop them up into what was basically a meatless mincemeat pie. I remember Aunt Lena telling me that when she was a child—probably 100 years ago at this point—they used to make the pie with meat and sweet spices, but it had evolved over the years. I didn’t love the taste, but I loved the tradition. Going out to pick them was a big adventure. And we always had ice-cold milk with a slice.” That original recipe is part of Legare-Floyd’s upcoming ‘Splatter’ recipe book.
Kronsberg, who has cooked in Charleston kitchens for over three decades, has overseen the Rosebank Farms’ bakery and kitchen at the front of the Kiawah River since right before Covid. When he’s not in the kitchen, you might find him digging up carrots or changing a tractor tire. But when he is at his chopping board, he uses whatever heirlooms are ripe for his tomato pies—Brandywine, Cherokee Purple—and focuses on the fundamentals.
“Drain your tomatoes,” he stressed. “Slice and lay them out on a rack overnight. We found a 100 percent all-butter crust that we love, but you can skip the crust entirely—our crustless gluten-free tomato pie is one of our biggest sellers.”
He’s also got a tip for layering. “Par-bake your crust with a little cheese first. Then tomatoes. Then your cheese-mayo mixture. I was never a giant mayonnaise fan, but it’s all about Dukes. Basil and scallions, heavy on the basil. Season with salt and pepper.”
That blend of heritage and reinvention is what keeps tomato pie firmly rooted in the Lowcountry while still allowing for interpretation. Whether baked in a flaky crust or settled into Bisquick, or layered in slices or diced into chunks, tomato pie speaks to the ingenuity of Southern cooks and their devotion to seasonal abundance.
Even though it may not have centuries of tradition behind it, tomato pie has earned its place at the Southern table—right next to the squash casserole, the fried okra, and yes, the tomato sandwiches that started it all.
Find Authentic Tomato Pies at:
Willie’s Roadside Market
2434 N. Hwy 17
Mount Pleasant, SC
boonehallplantation.com
Stono Market & Tomato Shed Cafe
842 Main Road
Johns Island, SC
stonofarmmarket.com
Legare Farms
2620 Hanscombe Point Road
Johns Island, SC
Rolling market bus (different locations)
legarefarms.com
Rosebank Farms Market
5018 Kiawah River Dr
Johns Island, SC
rosebankfarms.com
TOMATO PIE RECIPE FOR WILLIE’S Roadside Market
Courtesy of Salthouse Catering’s Pastry Chef Blaise Mahan
Ingredients:
2 large vine-ripened tomatoes
Salt and pepper to taste
2 cups Duke’s mayo
2 cups shredded cheddar cheese, divided
½ cup diced yellow onion
1 tsp kosher salt
½ cup fresh basil, chopped
½ cup & 1 tbsp panko
Pie shell, prebaked
Directions:
Preheat the oven to 375*F.
Core and slice the tomatoes about ¼-inch thick. (yields 8-10 slices)
Lay the slices on paper towels to drain off the excess juice.
Sprinkle the tomatoes with salt and pepper to taste, and allow them to dry while you prepare the filling.
In a mixing bowl, combine the mayo, 1 cup of cheddar, diced onion, salt, chopped basil, and 1 tablespoon of panko.
In a pre-baked pie shell of your choosing, sprinkle 1/4 cup of the remaining panko into the bottom of the shell. Add half of your tomato slices to the pie in one layer. Scoop half of the cheese/mayo filling onto the tomatoes and spread it to cover the tomatoes.
Repeat the process, smoothing out the filling on top to completely cover the tomatoes.
Bake for 15 minutes. Add the remaining cup of cheddar cheese to the top, completely covering the topping, and bake for an additional 15 minutes or until the cheese and filling are bubbling.
Let cool before serving.