# 340: Apple Pie for Everyone
Apple pie includes ingredients from all over the world.
As American as Apple Pie?
Apple pie has long been synonymous with America but there are very few if any ingredients that come from the United States of America. The apples we make fillings with today are descendants of wild trees in the forests outside Kazakhstan,1 through Asia and the Middle East, then to Greeks and Romans who brought and planted apples across Europe and North Africa. Seeds and cuttings were brought to North America by Jamestown colonists. John Chapman, who in elementary school we learned about as Johnny Appleseed, travelled by foot ahead of settlers moving west, planting apple orchards on his way that allowed him, by federal law, to claim land which he then sold to incoming settlers, turning a profit and expanding apple cultivation. 2
But, apples do not grow true to their seed. “What does that mean?”, you say. Well, if you sprout an apple tree from the seed of an apple it is unlikely that fruit from the new tree will have the same flavor and characteristics of the original apple… and I don’t mean the one in the Garden of Eden. An apple grown from seed will share some characteristics from each parent but not all, and sometimes they won’t be the best characteristics either. You will have created a new apple variety. Some good. Some not so good. And, some down right awful.
To duplicate an existing apple tree, growers must take a cutting called a scion from a tree and graft it on to rootstock. I started my little pie cottage orchard in this way. Not all grafts took but those that did are doing well including a Roxbury Russet which is said to be the oldest American apple that was established in southern New England in the 1600s.3 But, an in depth dive into apples is a story for another day, let’s get back to ingredients for apple pie.
Today’s apples seem hopelessly pompous and vain, all polished pampered blush.4
Wheat
For crusts and thickening the filling, wheat’s journey began in northern Iran nearly 9,000 years ago, continued through central Asia, Greece and then to Europe. Unfortunately, the wheat the colonists brought with them failed and they were saved from starvation by Native Americans who shared with them their corn. The red wheat our flour is milled from in North American arrived via Russia in the 1800s.
Lard and Butter
If you use leaf lard in your pies, our domesticated pig’s ancestor is the wild boar native to Asia, Europe and Africa. Once again it is Columbus who ferried the boar’s feral pig descendants on one of his explorations as well as cattle who in turn provided dairy and butter.
Sugar
American pies are known as having sweet fillings but from where does sugar come?Some 4,000 years ago sugar cane cropped up in Indonesia, India, China and Papua New Guinea. Columbus brought it to the New World and as food writer Simran Sethi says, “…its growth was built on the labor and intense suffering of millions of enslaved Africans who were brought to the Americas to cultivate and harvest what the colonists called ‘white gold.‘“ The French turned to boiling beets when sugar cane was blocked by England during the Napoleonic wars and beets provide a goodly amount of our sugar today.
Spices
Cinnamon’s roots are from Sri Lanka, Indonesia, and Vietnam, allspice from the Greater Antilles, southern Mexico, and Central America, and nutmeg from the Banda Islands in Indonesia, also known as the Spice Islands. Salt, from both the land and sea, is one of the only ingredients that might actually be from America.
The Strength of Pie Stands for Much More
But, pie is much more than the sum of its ingredients. The New York Times declared in a 1902 editorial. "Pie is the food of the heroic. No pie-eating people can ever be permanently vanquished."
Like apple pie made with ingredients from all over the world and to form a more perfect union, We the People are called to stand together to honor our U.S. Constitution with solidarity and strength.5
What I’m Reading
The Constitution of the United States
We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.
What I’m Listening To
Long Walk Home, Bruce Springteen
Recipe: Apple Pie
You’ll find the recipe for The Quintessential Apple Pie at the link below.
Jacobsen, Rowan. 2014. ‘Roxbury Russet’. Apples of Uncommon Character: 123 Heirlooms, Modern Classics, & Little-Known Wonders, 196-197. New York: Bloomsbury.
Brown, Dale. 1968. ‘From a Cookery to a Cuisine’. American Cooking, 15. New York: Time-Life Books.
From the Preamble to the U.S. Constitution.
Reading the preamble to the Constitution... made me weep, especially on the eve of a momentous day in our nation's history. We are standing on the precipice of losing 250 years of rights and freedoms, our peoples gasping for breath as we lurch towards authoritarianism. We were born from diversity. Diversity needs to be our standard in our struggle to regain control of our freedoms.
I am reminded of a Star Trek episode that struck me deeply when I first saw it. Spock began wearing a medallion and when asked what it stood for he replied "It is the Vulcan IDIC. Infinite Diversity, Infinite Combinations". I stand for the IDIC.
So timely and touching, Kate! 🍎 🥧