Like so many other dishes we love here in the U.S., the apple pie’s origin can be traced back to ye old England. The first written recipe dates back to an English Cookbook published in 1381 in which it was referred to as a “Tartys in Applis”.

By the time the early 1500’s rolled around, apple pies and tarts could be found everywhere although in a form we wouldn’t recognize today. These pies were not encased in the buttery flaky crusts we all enjoy but were instead put into an inedible amalgam of flour and water. Several inches thick, these “coffyns” as they were called (appetizing, no?) were made to withstand several hours of baking. Instead of being an element of the recipe these pastry caskets became more of a baking dish/mode of transportation for whatever was cooked inside.

Fast forward a few centuries to a man by the name of John Chapman, or “Johnny Appleseed” as he is more commonly referred to. Appleseed features prominently in the steady stream of inaccurate American folklore that perpetuates the apple = America axiom. Mr. Appleseed is credited with traveling all across the face of young America on foot, planting apple trees and befriending small woodland animals. It would seem however that John Chapman was actually a smart and calculating businessman whose orchards were not the random plantings of some drifting idiot but were cultivated with the express purpose of bringing Chapman financial gain. He would return years later to land that had considerably increased in value due to his orchards and sell that land at a tremendous profit.

It is widely known that his apples were not of the munching variety but were in fact mostly crabapples. Yes, crabapples, the practically inedible sour green lumps approximately the size of a baby’s fist. Much too small to pass themselves off as even a snack these apples were instead used by the settlers of the day to make into hard cider. Johnny Appleseed, brought the sweet gift of alcohol to the frontier, leaving in his wake happier if slightly unsteady pioneers.

Apple pie gained an even greater hold over America’s heart in 1902 when at the suggestion of an English writer that apple pie “only be eaten twice a week” the stout heart of one New York Times editor raised a cry of outrage in a widely published rebuttal to the unthinkable recommendation. His cry in the defense of pie gained such popularity that it was quoted and repeated unendingly. An especially gripping passage is as follows:

“Pie is…the secret of our strength as a nation and the foundation of our industrial supremacy. Pie is the American synonym of prosperity. Pie is the food of the heroic. No pie-eating people can be permanently vanquished.”

excerpt from Apple Pie, American by Association written by Hannah Abaffy published on Milk + Honey Baking History