APPLE PIE - A Bite Out of Cultural History
Just how American is apple pie?

by CALIFORNIA KAY, guest writer

We’ve all heard one of the most patriotic and appetite-inducing phrase many times over: “As American as apple pie.” No other idiom stirs the salivary glands, although “That’s how the cookie crumbles” and “There’s the icing on the cake” come pretty close. But just how genuinely American is America’s beloved classic dessert? Of course, questioning the “American-ness” of the American Apple Pie is bound to stir pride of some, but we can’t always have our cake and eat it too. Nonetheless, here’s the tantalizing story of how a great dish became the favorite of a great nation . . .

By definition, a pie is any dish that consists of a crust that encloses or holds a scrumptious filling, such as meat, fruit, vegetable, nut, or cream. In this case, an Argentinean empanada would constitute a pie, as well as certain Chinese dumplings, and everyone’s favorite, the pizza.

Pie-like pastries were found in the days of the Ancient Egyptians. Historians and archaeologists have uncovered records of fruits and jellies baked into Egyptian breads. The tomb walls of King Ramses II (ruled 1304 - 1237 B.C.) contain etches of such delicacies produced by the pharaoh’s finest bakers.

The first resemblance of modern pies actually go back to the Ancient Greeks, who created pies that consisted of a flour-water crust that kept the juices of meat while cooking. When the Imperial Romans finally came around to conquer the Greeks, the Romans not only took with them the land and people of the defeated as prizes of their victory, but they also obtained the Greek recipe for pies (“there’s the icing on the cake!”). The Roman elite eventually developed the recipe to include fillings of mussel, oyster, fish, and other fine meats.

Skip several centuries and a couple of latitudes northward towards fourteenth-century Jolly Old England, and we see the first written records of modern pie come into existence. These pies were first called “coffins” or “coffyns” (the Dark Ages were a period of poor lighting, resulting in poor eyesight, which eventually led to learning disadvantages and poor spelling. Linguists pass this off as “Old English” as to not hurt anybody’s pride). Morticians eventually borrowed the word (and spelling) of “coffyn,” for somewhat obvious and very morbid reasons.

In these days before the invention of the refrigerator, pie crusts were made for the sole purpose of storage and preservation of food. Pies were made with closed crusts, resembling a modern day calzone or empanada, often with very hard and inedible crusts. Open crust pies were called “tarts” (still used by the English today). An English recipe for apple tart from 1361 (“For to Make Tartys in Applis”) is one of the first records of the modern apple pie, and shows how far back recipes for apple pie go, and how poor the English were at spelling and grammar. This “Tartys in Applis” was virtually identical to twenty-first century apple pies made in America, with the exception of certain spices.

As for the key ingredient in apple pies, there were no apples in the Americas before the arrival of Columbus. The English Pilgrims who came in 1620, if not earlier European explorers, were the first to bring apple seeds from the Old World and introduce them to the New World.

If there’s any fable to the story of the apple pie, it’s that apple pies are a priceless success of the combination of multicultural influence, many centuries of innovation, and good taste (pun intended). Further research into the idiom “As American as apple pie” reveals that this particular one is a shortened version of its original, “As American as motherhood and apple pie,” intended to give that feel-good, wholesome sentiment. The phrase itself is reflective of how nonexclusively American apple pie really is. After all, there were mothers before pies or the States came along. Regardless, it’s always nice to have Mom bake you an apple pie, so you can have that wholesome American experience -- an experience that’s truly as multicultural as apple pie.

Recipe for Mock Apple Pie, a truly American type of apple pie!

Background: In the nineteenth century, American pioneers, short on supplies of fresh apples, came up with an innovative way to make their favorite pie without apples. Their secret: soda crackers. Americans, though disappointed with the lack of apples, became so enthralled with a easy-and-quick-to-make pie that tasted very much like the original that the recipe became a public success. In 1935, Ritz Crackers introduced a recipe that called for their very own round-shaped crackers. This recipe has become a classic:

Prep time: 45 minutes
Total time: 1 hour, 20 minutes
Serves: 10
Pastry for 2-crust 9-inch pie
36 Ritz Crackers, coarsely broken (about 1 and ¾ cups crumbs)
2 cups sugar
2 teaspoon cream of tartar
grated peel of 1 lemon
2 tablespoons lemon juice
2 tablespoons butter or margarine
½ teaspoon ground cinnmon

Preheat oven to 425 degrees F. Roll out half of the pastry and place in 9-inch pie plate. Place crack crumbs in crumbs and set aside.
Mix sugar and cream of tartar in medium saucepan. Gradually stir in 1 and ¾ cups water until well blended. Bring to boil on high heat. Reduce heat to low. Simmer 15 minutes. Add lemon peel and juice, and allow to cool. Pour syrup over cracker crumbs. Dot with butter, sprinkle with cinnamon. Roll out remaining pastry and place over pie. Trim, seal and flute edges. Slit top crust to allow steam to escape.
Bake 30 to 35 minutes or until crust is crisp and golden. Cool completely.

Enjoy!

Resources:
Mariana, John F. The Encyclopedia of American Food and Drink. Lebhar-Friedman: New York, 1999 (p.8).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_pie
http://whatscookingamerica.net/History/PieHistory.htm
http://www.foodtimeline.org/foodpies.html#applepie
http://www.kraftfoods.com
http://cristinamarchini.blog.excite.it/permalink/151046
http://www.minimuseum.org/DDME2003/ddme03dealers.htm
http://www.oprah.com/foodhome/food/recipes/
http://www.kabobs.com/products/715beefempanada.html