UC Berkeley picks its favorite Thanksgiving pie

Pumpkin pie was the clear pick of more than 200 Berkeleyan readers. (Courtesy image Wikimedia Commons)

It wasn’t even close. More than 100 Berkeleyan readers said pumpkin is their favorite Thanksgiving pie.

“I love everything pumpkin,” said staffer Inette Dishler, one of the five pie poll voters to win an “I’m a Berkeleyan” T-shirt. “The smell makes it feel like fall and the holidays, and it’s so yummy!”

Out of 271 people who voted in last week’s poll, more than 37 percent went for pumpkin, followed by 17 percent who liked pecan. Eleven percent prefer apple (“Apple pie or die,” Berkeleyan editor Carol Ness says), and another 6 percent voted for sweet potato.

The other T-shirt winners, drawn at random from poll-takers who left their email address, include:

• Chemistry graduate student Diptarka Hait, who picked pecan: “I like pecan pie because I like pecan a lot and am not particularly fond of fruits, ruling out a lot of other competitors.”
• Sherrill Clark, a lecturer who retired in 2013: “I like pumpkin pie because I grow my own pumpkins and the idea of actually using them up for good is appealing to me. This year the crop was small for some reason, but we still got three pies.”
• James Cooney, a staffer in the Controller’s Office, who likes apple: “I don’t really have a favorite recipe, just whichever one puts a slice of apple pie in front of me.”
• An anonymous Berkeleyan reader who likes pumpkin.