Grandma’s Apple Pie
For my first Food & History recipe, I decided to do apple pie. Coincidentally, my father-in-law gave me his family’s apple pie recipe for Thanksgiving this year, so I’ve had it in my mind for quite some time. This recipe in particular came from his grandmother, and has since been passed down through the generations. The category of Food & History is so fun because while I plan on doing legitimate research for this category, it also allows me the privilege to recreate family recipes like this one; family history is still history, after all.
But where did apple pie actually come from? How did it become the American staple that it is today? Well, also coincidentally, I have been reading The Secret History of Food, by Matt Siegel, and he devoted an entire chapter to pie! The first main takeaway/theory of the chapter “Pie, Progress, and Plymouth Rock,” is that the American Revolution may not have even happened had it not been for pie, which in the colonies was served as breakfast, lunch, dinner, and even a midnight snack. Siegel quotes a 19th-century physician F.W. Searle:
“The brave men who made up the Boston Tea Party,” he writes, “ and who defied the whole English nation rather than pay an unjust tax, were pie-biters from Boston. The bands of untrained stragglers who defeated a disciplined army at Concord, at Lexington, and Bunker Hill, sprung from the Puritan stock which introduced and made famous the American pie. The history of New England shows conclusively that the Yankee pie is a mighty stimulator of energy and that it is conducive to vigilance, aggressiveness, and longevity.”
I don’t know about you, but I don’t think I’ve ever had energy to do anything after eating a piece of pie, never mind pollute the entire Boston harbor. And I’m pretty sure if you ate pie for every meal, you might end up with diabetes, not longevity, especially since American colonists are responsible for making the crust an edible part of pie. While we are not responsible for the addition of butter (that beautiful idea belongs to the French), English pie crust before the New World was actually intentionally inedible. It was super thick and hard, and meant to be more as a disposable shell to be tossed after the filling was consumed. In the colonies, however, wheat was initially hard to come by which forced colonists to stretch their crust until it became more thin and flaky. This made the crust easier to eat, and definitely more appetizing than chipping a tooth on the other stuff.
American colonists also changed the way apples were utilized. While apples originated in regions of Central Asia, today known as Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan with the first apple pie coming from 1381 England, the English didn’t really use apples in pie as much as you’d think. Apples were used more as a vegetable than anything else, accompanying meat dishes with onions and potatoes. The first apple seeds were actually on board The Mayflower in 1620. While new types of apples greatly increased in Europe at that time, the colonies gave birth to at least 17,000 new varieties. Imagine if there were that many at the grocery store, I would be more indecisive than I am already!
The main reason apple pies became an American staple though, is because the growing season in New England was so short, fruits and other vegetables needed to be sugared and preserved to last through the winter. Apples held up better than the rest, and were able to be dried and reconstituted later to use for pie filling. Apple pie became so ubiquitous, it was even a contender to become the national flower!
So there you have it: the brief origin story of one of my favorite Thanksgiving/holiday treats. Now for the recipe!
This pie recipe was easy to make, but a little different in how I usually go about it. I primarily create a lattice on the top of my pies or some other sort of design, but this recipe has a crumb top instead. Grandma unfortunately did not provide a recipe for a crust if she made it from scratch, so that is one I have started to use in recent years from one of the Magnolia books. While I love making the intricate designs, hearing my father-in-law say it tasted just how he remembered it made this year’s switch totally worth it. I hope you enjoy!
S
Grandma’s Apple Pie
Ingredients:
Apple mix:
5-6 apples, peeled, cored, and sliced
1/4 cup of sugar
3/4 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp nutmeg
2 tbs oatmeal
Topping:
3/4 cup brown sugar
3/4 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/3 cup butter - not too soft
Crust:
1 1/4 cup all-purpose flour, plus more to roll out the dough
1 tsp salt
8 tbs /1 stick of unsalted butter, cut into 1/2 inch cubes and chilled
1/4 cup cold water
1 large egg
Method:
Crust:
In a large bowl, whisk together the flour and salt. Sprinkle in the butter and with a pastry blender or your fingers, cut the butter into the flour until the largest pieces are the size of peas. Gradually add the water and use a rubber spatula or your hands to mix until dough forms. It shouldn’t be watery or wet.
Shape the dough into flattened ball. Wrap tightly in plastic wrap and refrigerate for an hour.
Dust the counter or work area and roll the dough to a round about 2 1/2 inches larger than a 9in pie plate. Transfer the dough to the pie plate and carefully ease it into the edges. Trim any excess evenly, and crimp the crust along the rim.
Apple mix:
Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
In a large bowl, mix the dry “apple mix” ingredients.
Add the apples and mix until the apples are coated.
Add the filling on top of the chilled pie crust and distribute evenly.
Topping:
In a separate bowl, mix the brown sugar, flour, and cinnamon first, then fold in the butter, mashing it into crumbs.
