Florida is a good place to contemplate important matters of nature like the mating habits of bottlenose dolphins (colorful) and the take-off techniques of loons (unfortunate). On a recent trip to visit my parents, I also found myself thinking about the mysterious fruit, the key lime. Even though I spent many of the Christmas vacations of my childhood throwing fish heads to pelicans on Marathon Key, I believed that key lime pie was just lime pie that you ate in the Keys. I’m not sure it fully sunk in that the key lime is actually a fruit unique from the Persian lime (also known as the gin and tonic lime, at least to me). Here are some fun key lime facts:

1. They’re not green. Or rather, the ones you should be eating are not green. The ripe ones are bright yellow.
2. Most of them don’t come from the keys, at least not since the 1926 hurricane that wiped out most of the lime groves of Florida. Now we get key limes from Mexico.
3. They’re native to Southeast Asia, so I was probably eating them all the time in Cambodia in place of Persian limes without ever realizing it.
4. They’ve been known to cause phytophotodermatitis upon contact, making human skin extra sensitive to light. No word on how long this effect lasts, but it sounds like bad news for sunburned tourists in a tropical climate.
5. They are smaller and seedier than their Persian brethren, and their flavor is more tart and bitter.

Okay, so none of those facts make them sound terribly appealing, particularly the last two. But because they have a stronger flavor, you don’t need much juice to get a strong limey flavor, which makes them ideal for cooking.

I suspect, though, that the real reason that key limes and the pies they go into are so popular is because we associate them with sunshine and sand and Ernest Hemingway and pelicans and fish heads. They’re a vacation on a plate. I mean, look how happy this guy looks.

So if you’re craving an escape from the cold winds of the Northeast, try this key lime recipe that I lifted from Emeril Lagasse. I’ll be honest; I didn’t make this. The key lime pie I ate recently came from a grocery store. But then, I was in Florida. I needed the extra time to think about dolphins.

Key Lime Pie

• 1 1/2 cups graham cracker crumbs
• 1/2 cup granulated sugar
• 4 tablespoons (1/2 stick) butter, melted
• 2 (14-ounce) cans sweetened condensed milk
• 1 cup key lime juice
• 2 whole large eggs
• 1 cup sour cream
• 2 tablespoons powdered sugar
• 1 tablespoon lime zest

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F.

In a bowl, mix the graham cracker crumbs, sugar, and butter with your hands. Press the mixture firmly into a 9-inch pie pan, and bake until brown, about 20 minutes. Remove from the oven and allow to cool to room temperature before filling.

Lower the oven temperature to 325 degrees F.

In a separate bowl, combine the condensed milk, lime juice, and eggs. Whisk until well blended and place the filling in the cooled pie shell. Bake in the oven for 15 minutes and allow to chill in the refrigerator for at least 2 hours.

Once chilled, combine the sour cream and powdered sugar and spread over the top of the pie using a spatula. Sprinkle the lime zest as a garnish on top of the sour cream and serve chilled.