National Apple Pie Day, America’s favorite dessert, is observed annually on May 13th.
- The first apple pie recipe printed was in England in 1381. The list of ingredients included good apples, good spices, figs, raisins, pears, saffron and cofyn (a type of pastry crust).
- While the apple pie existed well before the Pilgrims landed on the eastern shores of what is now The United States, Americans wax poetic about the how American apple pie is. The phrase “as American as apple pie” has been around for more than 100 years.
- During the turn of the 20th century when whole toasted cereals were becoming the ‘health food’ fad, pie gained a bad reputation. Apple pie saved the day of sorts, being more nutritious than other pies according to some.
- Soldiers during World War II were often quoted they were fighting “for Mom and apple pie.” In 1970, advertisers used the patriotic connection with a commercial jingle “Baseball, hot dogs, apple pie, and Chevrolet.”
- It’s believed the first apple pie was made in England – over six hundred years ago!
- Some sources also say that the first pie was made in Egypt in 9500 B.C.
- English settlers brought apple pie-making to America.
- Settlers of the American west made mock apple pie. They had no apples. They used crackers and special spices instead. They thought it tasted like real apple pie. Some people still make mock apple pie today.
- “During the Civil War, both Union and Confederate troops scavenged for apples and commandeered the hearths—and flour bins—of white farmers and black tenants to bake pies,” writes John T. Edge in Apple Pie: An American Story. “Wartime adversity fixed the taste of apple pie on the palate of generations to come.”
- By 1902, an editorial in the New York Times proclaimed that pie had become “the American synonym for prosperity.”
- In the 1920s, the phrase as American as apple pie started to appear in print.
- Pies in the middle ages were savory and filled with decadent meats instead of the sweet fillings we are familiar with today.
- Pie town is located in New Mexico making for a great pit stop on your way out west or destination!
- Pumpkin pie was first introduced to the American holiday table at the pilgrim’s second Thanksgiving in 1623.
- According to the American Pie Council, Americans buy more than 186 million pies at the grocery store each year. That is enough to stretch around the globe and beyond. 7% of American have also tried to pass off store bought pie as homemade.
- Amelia Simmons wrote the first American cookbook, called American Cookery, in 1796. It included recipes for pumpkin and apple pies.
- 1 in 5 Americans surveyed by the American Pie Council have eaten an entire pie by themselves.
- One third of American have eaten a slice of pie in bed.
- Apple pie is the go to favorite in 24 states in the United States.
- Historians believe that the Greeks originated pie pastry. In the plays of Aristophanes, which took place in the 5th century B.C., there are mentions of sweetmeats including small pastries filled with fruit.
- Apple pie is the most popular flavor in the United States, followed by pumpkin, chocolate, lemon meringue and cherry.
- “As easy as pie” is an American expression. It came from the 1890s when “pie” was a common slang expression meaning anything easy, a cinch; the expression “easy as pie” came from that.
- Approx. $700 million in pies are sold in grocery stores every year. This does not include restaurants, only grocery stores. If you lined up the number of pies sold in one year, they would circle the globe.
- Oliver Cromwell banned the eating of pie in 1644, declaring it a pagan form of pleasure. For 16 years, pie eating and making went underground until the Restoration leaders lifted the ban on pie in 1660.
- 47% of Americans for whom the word “comforting” comes to mind when they think of pie.
- 9% of Americans prefer to eat their pie crust-first.
- 18% of men who say their wife makes the best homemade pie while 2% of women who say their husband makes the best homemade pie.
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