Like Stack Cake, Shoo-Fly Pie is a genuine example of folk cuisine, its origin obscure and its recipe subject to variation. There are two conventional wisdoms concerning Shoo-Fly Pie, one holding that it is a traditional Pennsylvania Dutch food and the other that it is an example of old-time Southern vernacular cuisine. There is however no evidence that Shoo-fly Pie existed prior to the expansion of sorghum molasses production in the last half of the 19th century and it seems likely that, also like Stack Cake, Shoo-Fly Pie resulted from the increased availability of this inexpensive form of sugar.