Apple Pie

The typical American pie made from uncooked apples, fat, sugar and sweet spices mixed together and baked inside a closed pie shell descends from fifteenth century.

English apple pies, which, while not quite the same, are similar enough that the relationship is unmistakably.

By the end of the sixteenth century in England, apple pie were being made that are virtually identical to those made in America in the early twenty first century.

Fourteenth century English often enjoyed meat pies. Fruits such as apples were substitute in traditional meat pies and served as dessert.

Apple pie was a favorite dessert during the reign of Elizabeth I.

The earliest record of the actual term apple pie does not occur until the late sixteenth century: ‘Thy breath is like the steame of apple-pyes,’ Robert Greene (English poet) in Arcadia – 1589.

Apple pies came to America quite early. There are recipes for apple pie on both manuscript recipes and eighteenth century English cookery imported into the colonies.

It was only in the twentieth century, apparently in 1960s, apple pies rapidly became an iconic part of the American culture witnessed by the cliché “as American as apple pie.”

In Colonial times the taste of a dish was emphasized more than appearance and presentation. Pies were often baked with a “take-off crust.”

The process allowed sugar and spices to be added after the apples had baked in the bottom pastry shell.

In 1930s a mock apple pie recipe, which used Ritz crackers instead of apples, was printed on Ritz cracker boxes.

In 1968 Mc Donald’s added an apple pie dessert to its menu.

In the nineteenth century, apple pie was also a common breakfast food among Yankees and people in rural communities. However, the use of pie as a breakfast food had declined by the end of the nineteenth century.

Noah Webster’s dictionary of 1828 suggests a difference between British and American versions, the American having more curt: “a pie made of apples stewed or baked inclosed in paste, or covered with paste, as in England.”
Apple Pie

Origin of Apricot (Prunus armeniaca)

Origin of Apricot (Prunus armeniaca)
The center of diversity of the apricot is northeastern China near the Russian border.

From there it spread west throughout Central Asia. Cultivation in China dates back 3,000 years and movement to Armenia and then to Europe from there, was slow.

It was known in China as far back as 658 BC and in Europe 406-250 BC.

Alexander the Great brought apricot from Asia to Greece and from there it was taken to Rome.

The Roman introduced apricots to Europe in 70-60 BC through Greece and Italy.

Apricots moved to the United States through English settlers on the East Coats and Spanish missionaries in California.

For much of their history of cultivation, apricots were grown from seedlings and few improved cultivars existed until the nineteenth century.

Cultivars vary among countries and in Turkey, Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Syria a great deal of the production is from seedling orchards.
Origin of Apricot (Prunus armeniaca)