Why is Apple Pie So American?

Apple pie's popularity in the English colonies is believed to be where it all began for America and Apple Pie!  According to Wikipedia, in the English colonies the apple pie had to wait for the planting of European varieties, brought across the Atlantic, to become fruit-bearing apple trees, to be selected for their cooking qualities as there were no native apples.  In the meantime, the colonists were more likely to make their pies from meat rather than fruit; and the main use for apples, once they were available, was in cider. However, there are American apple pie recipes, both manuscript and printed, from the eighteenth century, and it has since become a very popular dessert. All apple varieties are propagated by grafting, as clones, but in the New World, planting from seeds was more popular, which quickly lead to the development of hundreds of new native varieties. 

Apple pie was a common food in eighteenth century Delaware. As noted by the New Sweden historian Dr. Israel Acrelius in a letter: “Apple pie is used throughout the whole year, and when fresh Apples are no longer to be had, dried ones are used. It is the evening meal of children.”

A mock apple pie, made from crackers, was possibly invented by pioneers on the move during the nineteenth century who were bereft of apples. 

Although apple pies have been eaten since long before the European colonisation of the Americas, "as American as apple pie" is a saying in the United States, meaning "typically American". In the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, apple pie became a symbol of American prosperity and national pride. A newspaper article published in 1902 declared that “No pie-eating people can be permanently vanquished.”  The dish was also commemorated in the phrase "for Mom and apple pie" - supposedly the stock answer of American soldiers in World War II, whenever journalists asked why they were going to war.

The unincorporated community of Pie Town, New Mexico is named in honour of the apple pie!

To have a great Apple Pie at your 4th of July celebration, order from Crust'em Sweets Pies and Tarts in Palatine.  (847) 934-7570.