PHILADELPHIA – What could be more American than apple pie on the Fourth of July?
Well, blueberry, or strawberry or even raspberry, it turns out.
Unlike apples, these luscious summer fruits were all growing wild and being enjoyed by the American Indians when the colonists first arrived on these shores.
The ever-popular pie apple, on the other hand, is an import, brought over by the Brits and other early settlers in the 1600s, though new strains have been developed here since.
According to Devon, Pa.-based food historian William Woys Weaver, apple pie as a symbol of America only took hold in the 1800s, probably because the fruit was cheap, available, and held up well in winter storage.
So to be “truly patriotic on the Fourth, our vote for fruit pie goes to the berries. Not only are they the right colors, but the nation’s birthday lies smack in the middle of the berry season.
“I’ve never found a storebought pie that has come close to homemade in taste,” said avid pie-maker Hannah Dougherty Campbell of Havertown, Pa., whose fillings often are fresh from the farm … or the cherry trees in her yard.
Cherries are another popular local summer fruit. Although they are no more native than the apple – they were among the food and seeds brought by the first settlers in the 1600s – they have a respectable local connection. “Farmers sold sour cherries in the streets in Philadelphia in the 1800s,” says Weaver.
Rhubarb is another popular regional choice for pies. Philadelphian John Bartram was the first to grow culinary rhubarb in America, in 1770, and we’ve been using it in pies practically ever since, typically combined with strawberries, raspberries or cherries – sweet or sour.
Pies are not native to America. They originated in ancient Greece, were snapped up by the Romans, and perfected by the English. The Pilgrims and later settlers brought their pie recipes with them and adapted them to the local ingredients.
Pies evolved from the original, handheld, Cornish “pocket pies” – like the ones featured in “the musical “Sweeney Todd -to the larger, multi-serving versions we know today sometime in the 1500s, according to Weaver, who, as associate editor, wrote the entry for pie (among others) in the “Encyclopedia of Food and Culture (Charles Scribners and Sons), a three-volume, 2,000-page culinary treatise.
That was also about the time that forks and knives came into use and the English started baking “pies” in shallow dishes.
Pies of different types were served at almost every meal in many households in the 1700s, and became a staple of American culinary culture.
John Phillip Carroll sums it up beautifully in the introduction to his new cookbook, “Pie pie pie (Chronicle Books): “More than almost any other dessert, pie for me has stood for what is good and nurturing about American life.”
So celebrate the Fourth of July. Bake a pie.
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