What's So American About Apple Pie?

When something or someone is particularly emblematic of the U.S., we often say they're 'as American as apple pie'. Learn the history of apple pie, plus how that phrase got started, in this episode of BrainStuff.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to brain Stuff production of I Heart Radio. Hey
brain Stuff, Lauren bog Obam Here. When you think of
the word America, what specific symbols come to mind? The
statue of Liberty, baseball burghers, world class albeit very expensive
college degree. Those are all good guesses, but for a

(00:22):
long time, a sweeter treat has represented the best and
worst of the United States. Apple pie. If you're from
around here, then it's a good bet that you've heard
the oft recited phrase as American is apple pie. But
what's the origin of this patriotic slogan. First, let's back
up and look at how apples landed on America's shores.

(00:42):
Apples had been cultivated around Europe and Asia for thousands
of years, but when European colonists arrived in the America's
they found only wild crab apples, small sour, dry apples
that aren't good for eating. Unlike some other fruits, if
you plant an apple seed, there's no guarantee that the
resulting tree bear the same delicious fruit you ate. Apple
trees tend to revert to their wild format. Grafting on

(01:05):
branches from developed trees helps, and you also need pollinators
like honey bees to grow the fruit. So although the
original settlers of Jamestown brought apple seeds and seedlings with
them from Europe and planted them in their new homeland,
the first apples grown in America were mostly used for
cider rather than dessert. Now let's talk pie. It was

(01:27):
only with the availability of granulated sugar through slavery and
trade that dessert pies, including apple pies, came into popularity
in America. Despite the apple pies common association with American pride,
Europeans had actually gotten the whole pie thing down centuries before.
A recipe for Dutch apple pie can be traced back
to fifteen fourteen, and the English were so enamored with

(01:49):
apple pies in the late fifteen hundreds that they even
came up with pie themed soliloquies. So who was responsible
for impressing apples into the American mindset? That would be
one John Chapman, also known by the more famous moniker
of Johnny Appleseed. Contrary to popular belief, Appleseed was no

(02:10):
mere American legend. He really did exist, and what's more,
he planted apple nurseries around the turn of the nineteenth
century throughout Ohio and other Midwestern states, and he sold
them at a tidy profit. Appleseed also gave away countless
more seedlings to pioneers who set up apple orchards across
the nation. He became legendary because he mostly walked estimates say,

(02:32):
somewhere around ten thousand miles over the course of his life,
all barefoot and with nothing but a single knife for protection.
He became a symbol of rugged individualism and frontier expansion,
and in the years since the United States has developed
a whole slew of truisms associated with apples, including an
apple a day keeps the doctor away, and one bad

(02:53):
apples spoils the bunch. The phrase American is apple pie
popped up in print as early as nineteen the eight
It was being used to describe lou Henry Hoover, the
first lady of the Hoover Presidency, and what a good
homemaker she was, But it wasn't until World War Two
that apple pies really became stamped into the American consciousness
as a patriotic pastry. By then, good apples had been

(03:16):
common for a few generations, and the dish was thought
of as homey and nostalgic, do perhaps to a popular
song titled ma I Miss your apple Pie, published in
nine and due to apple pie being the most frequently
served dessert at American military posts during the war, it
became a bit of a meme for American soldiers to

(03:37):
tell reporters that they were fighting for mom and apple pie,
and boom, the apple pie became American. Given apple pies
strong associations with America, it's perhaps not surprising that it's
not really a homegrown American product, but something baked overseas
and brought to these shores. But since immigrants are a
key component of the United States, there's perhaps no but

(04:00):
a symbol of America than this delicious dessert. Today's episode
was written by Terry yr Lagata and produced by Tyler Clain.
Brain Stuff is a production of I Heart Radio's How
Stuff Works. For more in this and lots of other
tasty topics, visit our home planet, how stuff Works dot com,
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(04:20):
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