Pie party planning

August 7, 2005 5:53 PM

My wife is turning forty and wants a birthday never to be forgotten. One idea that she is fond of is having a pie fight with all of her friends. Does anyone have any idea how to plan such an event? In particular where, besides my house, is a good place to hold it. What kind of pies are best? (She doesn't want foam.) And how I can I make such a seemingly chaotic event run smoothly? Any experiences or anecdotes are welcomed.
posted by captainscared to Food & Drink (25 answers total)

How many friends would you want to be involved and how long would you expect said pie fight to last?

Not to be a pie fight party pooper but, I can't imagine that the actual fight would last for longer than a couple of minutes.
posted by freshgroundpepper at 6:15 PM on August 7, 2005

A planned pie fight seems sorta odd. How about you find a suitable venue, stock it with lots pies and booze and then let the guest take it from there?
posted by mullacc at 6:21 PM on August 7, 2005

Ask Aaron Kaye, Yippie pie-thrower of yore
posted by growabrain at 6:26 PM on August 7, 2005

I suppose I too will be a party pooper. Wasting food for entertainment while so many go hungry is disgraceful. Think of something else to do.
posted by Scoo at 6:32 PM on August 7, 2005

Beware - if you're not able to clean up all the cream, your backyard is going to smell pretty funky for a while.

Some friends had a jello and cream fight on their balcony. Hilarious, but trememdously sticky for a long time.
posted by tomble at 6:36 PM on August 7, 2005

I can't imagine a planned pie fight working well. freshgroundpepper is right -- it might be amusing for a couple of minutes, if you can get over the initial awkwardness, but then what?
posted by danb at 6:38 PM on August 7, 2005

It does seem tricky to arrange

For example:

(number of guests) x (number of pies a person can throw in a minute) x (desired duration of the fight, in minutes) = an absurdly huge number of pies.

Also, what do you do next? AFAICT, the pie fight will last for only a few minutes, at best. Now everyone is covered with pie. What now? Do you have facilities for them all to clean up and change clothes?

Anyway, the first step is to determine whether the invitees are interested in this activity. The answer to this question might relieve you of the need to answer any of the other questions :-)
posted by winston at 6:50 PM on August 7, 2005

Ignore the party poopers re 'food for starving millions' - cream pies aren't some essential resource being wasted (any more so than any consumable product), and there are so many many ways in which western life contributes to the poverty of the south that one little pie fight is nothing. If you'd bought her a Ducati (a much more appealing idea to my mind) you'd be doing far more damage...

Anyway, buy lots of cheap pie casings and defrost tehm and fill tehm with whipped cream and get people drunk and then start throwing them around - pretty simple, I reckon. But there'll be a big mess. Nothing too much that a public park couldn't handle (just collect and recycle the aluminium bases, seagulls/pigeons/rain should handle the rest), but how are you going to deal with sticky guests? And I hope all invitees have a sense of humour. Indians have a lot of fun with the Holi festival.
posted by wilful at 6:58 PM on August 7, 2005

Best answer: Bathing suits and, since it's warm out, a few of those sprinklers that shoot up into the air and go back and forth. Pie fight followed by running through sprinklers to clean off. You'd want to put tarps down on the back lawn, I'd think.

Sounds like your wife wants to feel like a kid again. Post fight could there be some moonwalk action? What about water balloons filled with whipped cream and several canned cherries each? Would have to test them out to make sure that they would pop though.

You could also have a tug-of-war into a kiddie tub full of pudding and whipped cream.

This is starting to sound like that nickelodeon game show from years ago...
posted by lorrer at 7:11 PM on August 7, 2005

OK, look, here's what you need- skip the crust. Just get a stack of aluminum pie tins, a carton of Redi-Whip, and go nuts.

I'm pretty sure that Redi-Whip does not actually qualify as food in any nutritional sense, so that ought to assuage the prickly skins of those here who would seem to need a pie in the face most.
posted by mkultra at 7:15 PM on August 7, 2005

I don't know how I'd feel about a pie fight... it'd probably be fun. La Tomatina is a good time, after all and that's way the hell messier.

And to all the "OMG PEOPLE ARE STARVING" folks... You could've worked a few more hours and given the extra income away. You could've skipped a few nights at the bar with friends and fed a starving child. A once-in-a-lifetime pie fight is an absolutely absurd reason to get holier than thou.
posted by mosch at 7:24 PM on August 7, 2005

Go paintballing.
posted by stray at 7:55 PM on August 7, 2005

Re: length of pie fights, my SO says: "How about throwing pie slices?"
posted by trevyn at 8:27 PM on August 7, 2005

Friend of mine, for his thirtieth birthday, wrestled his wife and a girlfriend of hers in a kiddie pool full of white gravy. You know, the kind you put on biscuits? Sloppy and very entertaining.

The best part was the showmanship. A proclamation was read, the combatants had introductions and back stories, as well as theme songs. It was quite a production.
posted by ColdChef at 8:41 PM on August 7, 2005

Best answer: But trevyn, pie slices are pointy! Safety first.

Seriously, if she wants pie fights, mkultra's tins with fake whip are best for a straight-arm delivery to the face. You need to be careful about abrupt stops of nose at pie tin. If you want to throw, though, you need a weightier pie.

When I throw pie, I prefer a pastry bottom crust (no graham crumbs) a well-set custard base, and cream from a spray can. I only ever throw one at a time, so you may find a more economical alternative to spray whip for a volume order like yours.

Check if your guests are allergic to any of your ingredients, and make sure you have lots of towels.
posted by Sallyfur at 8:44 PM on August 7, 2005

Sallyfur is right, pie made for throwing need to be made from more than fluffy cream. Custard or Pudding bases are good, but dairy, so they'll stink later.

I reccomend cheap pie crusts (just the tin isn't quite the same) with ~1" of jello in the bottom, topped with whipped cream of some sort.

Get a bunch of different flavors of Jello and give each combatant their own color, like paintball.
posted by blasdelf at 9:42 PM on August 7, 2005

Call a place that organises 'krazy kids partees' and let them organise and clean up.

As a kid in Toronto, everybody had their birthday at The Mad Hatter, where we had outdoor whipped cream fights (so that it could all be hosed down after) and pillow fights in a strobe-lighted room. It rocked.
posted by Kololo at 12:32 AM on August 8, 2005

"The Mad Hatter" !!
That's it... I was just trying to remember the name of that place...I remember a friend having a bday party there. They also had these wheely-bins that we bumped around in.
*sniff* good times....
posted by Radio7 at 12:48 AM on August 8, 2005

Save the cleanup, have the pie fight on a subway. Alternatively, she and her friends can get on the subway, sit apart scattered all over one car, and one-by-one join in on singing the cheesiest love song they remember from their high school years. More people can get on at the next station, listening by cellphone so they are already singing in unison as the doors open. here's a list of cheesy love songs from Google:

"You're The Inspiration" - Chicago
"Hello" - Lionel Richie
"Suddenly" - Billy Ocean
"The One That You Love" - Air Supply
"(Everything I Do) I Do It For You" - Bryan Adams
"Every Rose Has Its Thorn" - Poison
"Separate Lives" - Phil Collins
"Almost Paradise" - Mike Reno/Anne Wilson
"Hold On To The Nights" - Richard Marx
"Tonight, I Celebrate My Love" - Peabo Bryson
"Always" - Atlantic Starr
"Everytime You Go Away" - Paul Young
"I Go Crazy" - Paul Davis
"I Honestly Love You" - Olivia Newton-John
"Nothing's Gonna Stop Us Now" - Starship
"The Lady In Red" - Chris De Burgh
"The Power Of Love" - Celine Dion
"Arthur's Theme (Best That You Can Do)" - Christopher Cross
"Faithfully" - Journey
"Feels Like Heaven" - Peter Cetera
"At This Moment" - Billy Vera & The Beaters
"I'll Always Love You" - Taylor Dayne
"I Want To Know What Love Is" - Foreigner
"Islands In The Stream" - Dolly Parton
posted by planetkyoto at 2:06 AM on August 8, 2005

Response by poster: Thanks for all the comments. I'm thinking the wayy to go is maybe a booth, like you see at carnivals. That way I can contain the mess and prevent utter chaos. What do you think?
posted by captainscared at 3:57 AM on August 8, 2005

Nothing to contribute, but your wife rocks....
posted by jalexei at 6:09 AM on August 8, 2005

A number of years ago a friend of mine threw two pie fights ("throw" is the correct verb to mean "host" when having a pie fight). We did it in Central Park. He brought a couple of large plastic painting tarps. The price of admission for everyone was TEN pies. Most people just brought crusts in aluminum pans and filled them on the spot with whipped cream, pudding, or jelly; a couple of people brought real fruit pies and custards and the like.

We lined the pies up around the edge of the tarps. Everybody stood as a group in the middle facing outward. A non-participant took a picture. Then all hell broke loose as everyone scrambled to the edge of the tarps for pies. It was glorious! The three longest minutes of mayhem I've ever seen. So much fun.

Notes: Fruit pies stain clothes. Think about bringing towels, clean clothes, or extra shoes (thrown pies are slickery on the tarps, so you really do need to wear shoes), or else consider how you're going to get home without dripping goo or feeling like a doofus. I walked home with big globs of chocolate pudding in my hair. Cleanup of the site involved rolling up the tarps and dumping them in a trash can.
posted by Mo Nickels at 7:32 AM on August 8, 2005

PS: There were maybe a dozen participants. Also, there were no really vicious or mean acts that I remember. It does seem like the kind of environment where fun could turn into fighting, especially if someone tries to do the pie-in-the-face grind, so I'd make sure to not invite any assholes. Pie fights should be asshole-free.
posted by Mo Nickels at 7:35 AM on August 8, 2005

What kind of pies are best?

There can only be one answer.
posted by flabdablet at 9:06 AM on August 8, 2005

Tarp the floor/field and, if indoors, the walls. You might want to hand out hairnets to those who want them.
posted by ifjuly at 9:43 AM on August 8, 2005