Apple pie
In cooking, an apple pie or apple tart is a fruit pie (or tart) in which the principal filling ingredient is apples. The pastry is generally used top-and-bottom, making a double-crust pie. An exception is the Tarte Tatin.
Ingredients
The best cooking apples (culinary apples, colloquially cookers), such as the Bramley, are crisp and acidic. The fruit for the pie can be fresh, canned, or reconstituted from dried apples. This affects the final texture, and the length of cooking time required, but it has no effect on the flavour of the pie. Dried or preserved apples were originally substituted at times when fresh fruit was unavailable.
English style
English apple pie recipes go back to the time of Chaucer. The 1381 recipe (see illustration) lists the ingredients as good apples, good spices, figs, raisins and pears. The cofyn of the recipe is a casing of pastry. Saffron is used for colouring the pie filling.
Cloves are a popular addition, tempering the sweetness in much the same way as cinnamon.
In England, apple pie is a dessert of enduring popularity, eaten hot or cold, on its own or with ice cream, double cream, or custard.
Absence of sugar in early English recipe
Most modern recipes for apple pie require an ounce or two of sugar, but the earliest recipe does not. There are two possible reasons for this.
Cane sugar imported from Egypt was not widely available in 14th-century England (costing between one and two shillings a pound - one source claims that this is roughly the equivalent of US$100 per kg in today's prices [1] (http://www.sucrose.com/lhist.html)).
On the other hand, the absence of sugar in the recipe may indicate that, because refined sugar was a relatively new introduction from the orient, the medieval English did not have quite as sweet a tooth as their descendants; honey, which was many times cheaper, is absent from the recipe, and the "good spices" and saffron, all imported, were no less expensive and difficult to obtain than refined sugar, and despite the expense refined sugar did appear much more often in published recipes of the time than honey, suggesting that it was not considered prohibitively expensive. [2] (http://www.maggierose.20megsfree.com/sugar.html) With the exception of apples and pears, all the ingredients in the filling probably had to be imported. And perhaps, as in some modern "sugar free" recipes, the juice of the pears was intended to sweeten the pie. [3] (http://www.recipesource.com/special-diets/diabetic/pies/apple-pie2.html)
Dutch style
Dutch apple pie (appeltaart or appelgebak) recipes go back a long way. There is a painting dated 1626 featuring such a pie. Dutch recipes typically also call for spice to be added and are often decorated in a lattice style.
American style
Aside from the obvious major ingredient, apple pies can have a great deal of variation. Some recipes incorporate spices such as cinnamon and nutmeg. They typically include sugar, and some recipes also use dried fruit (currants or sultanas). One variation of the apple pie uses fresh or frozen blackberry. Some people add a slice or two of cheddar cheese. Others say the pie is incomplete without a few slices of quince.
Apple pie in American Culture
In America the apple pie had to wait for the carefully planted pips, brought over protected in barrels, to bear fruit. In the meantime the colonists were more likely to make meat pies or "pasties" than fruit, and their main use for apples, once their planted pips finally bore fruit, was to make cider. There are American apple pie recipes both manuscript and printed, that date to the 18th century. Apple pie in the United States is a highly popular dessert, often served with a scoop of vanilla ice cream, as apple pie à la mode. "As American as apple pie" is a common saying in the United States, perhaps due to this association.1
A so-called mock apple pie using crackers was apparently invented by pioneers on the move during the nineteenth century who were bereft of apples. In the 1930s, and for many years afterwards, Ritz Crackers promoted a recipe for mock apple pie using their product, along with sugar and various spices. Although opinion is sharply divided on its merits, many people feel that its taste and texture are surprisingly close to the authentic pie.
1The full expression is usually stated as "As American as motherhood and apple pie", which is clearly metaphorical in intent, rather than literally trying to claim origin. Critics might argue that the expression reinforces gender stereotypes (mother staying at home baking, while father goes out to work), but it is hard to deny this metaphor's iconic status in American culture.
See also
- Tarte Tatin, a French variant on apple pie
- Apfelstrudel, an Austrian pie-like dish made with dough, apples, sugar and spices.
External links
- Food Timeline history Notes: (http://www.gti.net/mocolib1/kid/foodpies.html#applepie) Apple Pie
- Apple Pie Recipe (http://www.myhomecooking.net/apple-pie) With Lots of Pictures and Detailed Instructions on How to Make an Apple Pie.
- Apple Pie Nutritional Information (http://www.elook.org/nutrition/baked/3940.html)
ja:アップルパイ