SNACK TIME all american apple pie

What better way to use the apples from your apple picking adventure than to bake a homemade apple pie?? Learn more about America's favorite dessert tradition in this post from our school dietitian Leslie. 

The apple pie we know and love today is the result of centuries of innovation and good taste. Only crab apples were native to America, so the Pilgrims brought their favorite family pie recipes along with barrels of apples for planting seeds in the New World. 

Pioneer women often served pies with every meal, and as settlers moved westward, American regional pies developed.  The idiom “As American as apple pie” is a saying in the United States, meaning "typically American". In the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, apple pie became a symbol of American prosperity and national pride. 

The best apples for pie provide a combination of sweet (e.g. Golden Delicious) and tartness (e.g. Granny Smith) and hold their shape when cooked. 

Here are a couple tasty apple pie recipes to try out at home: 

-Epicurious Old Fashioned All American Apple Pie 

-Diana's Desserts All-American Apple Pie 

Contributed by Leslie Kay-Getzinger, MS RD, Regional Dietitian for Nutrition Management Services