It chilled in an anonymous refrigerated case at Sweetbay, squeezed between the fluffy brown mound of a chocolate mousse and a flat-topped pecan pie. It looked humble despite its new status: the official state pie of Florida.

Key lime pie.

Rep. Mitch Needelman, R-Melbourne, introduced legislation to memorialize key lime pie in November, 2005. As his bill moved through committees, on its way to passage by the state Senate in April, lawmakers took sides.

Pecan was mentioned and tossed aside. Rep. Dwight Stansel, D-Wellborn, championed sweet potato pie.

But in May, the plucky key lime routed the earthy tuber in the House of Representatives, 106-14. On June 20, Gov. Jeb Bush signed the key lime dish into law.

Key lime pie joined the state bird (mockingbird), the state marine mammal (manatee), the state flower (orange blossom) and the state reptile (alligator) on the list of Florida trivia questions.

Many foods enjoy state sponsorship: blueberry muffins in Minnesota, chocolate chip cookies in both Massachusetts and Pennsylvania. The official beverage of Ohio is tomato juice; the prepared food of Georgia, grits.

Only one other state had an official pie until now. Vermont claimed the apple pie in 1999.

Unlike Vermont, whose representatives noted apple pie needs to be served with cold milk, cheddar cheese or vanilla ice cream, Florida lawmakers remained neutral on accompaniments. They left it to constituents to chew on the merits of meringue, whipped cream or plain pie.

Key limes � the prime ingredient in their namesake pie � were brought to Florida by Spanish explorers in the 16th century. The pie itself is traced back to the 1860s. Key lime groves populated southern Florida and the Keys until a 1926 hurricane wiped them out. The fruit � smaller and with a thinner skin than its heartier Persian cousin � is now mostly imported from Mexico.

But tourists and locals alike still associate key lime pie with the Florida Keys, where sampling a slice remains a right of passage.

"When you think of dessert in Florida, it is the only one you think of," says Mike Martin, the owner of Mike's Pies in Tampa Bay.

Key lime pie sales bring in roughly 60 percent of Martin's $2.3 million annual revenue. He produces up to 10,000 key lime pies a month. Before the historic vote, a lobbyist delivered 174 of those pies - one for each of the 160 legislators and a few to pass around - to the state Capitol in Tallahassee.

Mike's Pies' "Killer Key Lime Pie" transcended Tallahassee's partisan politics.

Martin claims his secret to good pie can be found in the company's motto, "We cut no corners at Mike's Pies because pies have no corners."

The disclosed list of ingredients in key lime pie - egg yolks, Eagle Brand sweetened condensed milk, key lime juice and a graham cracker crust - wouldn't fill a basket at Sweetbay. Martin uses Nellie and Joe's Famous Key West Lime Juice.

Based in Key West, Nellie and Joe's buys the sour fruit - about the size of a pingpong ball - from farms on the west coast of Mexico. Co-owner Cheryl Millar said the bottler squishes enough key limes each year for 50 million bottles of the opaque yellow stuff.

The company's juice finds its way into pies, margaritas, salad dressings, chicken soup, marinades and salsa.

Mike's Pies - which pie shop manager Kelly Costigan thinks should be topped with a dab of whipped cream - won four consecutive national championships from 2000-03. But across chat rooms, on blogs and in culinary articles from the Miami Herald to the New York Times, you will find a hot debate on who makes the best official pie of Florida.

Mike's Pies is on the list. So is Terry's Famous Key Lime Pie in Davie, Miami's Blond Giraffe and Key West's own Steve's Authentic.

The pundits and critics will never agree on one pie, but they do agree that a good pie packs a punch. Key lime pie is a sweet and sour confection that when mixed just right, draws your cheeks inward and judo chops your tongue.

Just ask Johnny Jeffries, from Tennessee. He stopped into Mike's Pies coffee shop in downtown Tampa Bay on the last day of his vacation to purchase a few pies for himself and some lucky friends back home.

"It will make your tongue do flip-flops," Jeffries testified.

Interested in more? Click here to see the related design project, "Lord of the pies."