The return of Hubig's Pies means more than just having another sweet snack on the shelves. It is a piece of old New Orleans making a comeback, but making that comeback in changing times.
Will the allure last? Will that Hubig’s Pie that was a natural grab-and-gobble item for so long resume the same role after a decade of absence.
I think it will. After all, people have basically belly flopping into the prospect of getting the pies again. But as we tear into the first Hubig’s Pies now making their way back to the market I have to think about the Rip Van Winkle-esque experience of a New Orleans heritage brand coming back to life in the New Orleans we inhabit now.
A Hubig’s pie counts as an unabashedly sweet throwback in this era of 0 cal sparkling waters and energy bars. But there are exceptions to every trend, and the yearning for Hubig’s seems to connect more to an idea of New Orleans life than any doctor-approved lifestyle. It speaks to a different kind of wellness.
A Hubig’s Pie is a workday snack, a fishing trip ration or an after-school reward. And that’s precisely why these little pies mean so much.
For a city accustomed to seeing its traditions repackaged and exported like so many king cakes, a Hubig's pie was part of a steadfastly local routine, part of life as it was lived here and a daily reminder that our home has its own ways.
New Orleans people know a sno-ball beats a snow cone anytime, that a po-boy is in a different league than a sub, and that when you want a Hubig’s Pie, nothing else will really do.
Losing Hubig's pies for so long elevated them to a sort of martyr status, something entwined with our own past and the memories that are always traveling away from us. Now that they are coming back, a piece of that past might even seem to flow back, if only for the duration of a snack.
