No one but Yankees ever but meringue on a Key Lime pie. Jumping Jehosephat! The next thing you know somebody will want to put whipped cream on one. Meringue on a Key Lime pie - defeats the whole purpose of a tart pie.
Untrue— the recipes from old Key West date from before 1900 have no meringue. My comment on Meringue should have described when it was added by the Garden Club ladies distinct from their grandma’s 50 years before that. Recipes from before 1860— zero meringue. Perhaps the “yankees” got into the mix because they held (stole) Key West during the War in the 1860’s and were real bluecoat yankees with their own massa choose its conceits.(Operation Anaconda).
If what you refer to is the absolute crap (and hilariously calling it a meringue, which it is not) of fake whipped cream on a frozen concoction- then agree with you of the idiot modern yankee origins that think it is some kind of New England thing. It isn’t. Incidentally, we have some of the really old recipes which use... sea turtle eggs, fresh laid and legally harvested back in mid 1850’s up to when they could not. Turtle eggs, very thin shells taken out of the beach sands, which would in no way last more than a few days in the heat— so.. they made pies and had plenty of the real thing—Key Limes to “cook” the eggs.
Most do not know that the richest city in the US at one time was- Key West (a major industry being “wrecking” legitimate claims and also causing wrecks on fake reefs to collect maritime salvage. Chandlery/salvage was big business in the sail age).