{"id":459413,"date":"2026-09-10T13:54:13","date_gmt":"2026-09-10T13:54:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/459413\/"},"modified":"2026-09-10T13:54:13","modified_gmt":"2026-09-10T13:54:13","slug":"the-apple-pie-alongside-mom-became-the-symbolic-food-of-a-nation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/459413\/","title":{"rendered":"The apple pie (alongside mom) became the symbolic food of a nation"},"content":{"rendered":"

By DAVID BILLER<\/p>\n

Flaky, golden crust. Apple juices bubbling through its vents. The scent of cinnamon.<\/p>\n

Apple pie<\/a> is my comfort food, and the only thing my family always cooks together: rolling the dough, fluting the crust\u2019s edges, peeling and chopping the apples.<\/p>\n

My mom, the keeper of our oven\u2019s flame, has hinted she would commit heinous acts to keep her Grandma Fleischer\u2019s recipe secret. When my then-girlfriend came home for the first time and we baked a pie, my mom informed her that now she\u2019d have to marry me. (She did, perhaps fearing just desserts.)<\/p>\n

Never mind that the delicacy didn\u2019t originate in America; we claimed it as gastronomic manifest destiny. Colonists brought over apples, Johnny Appleseed spread them far afield and we became an apple pie nation. \u201cMom and apple pie\u201d \u2014 shorthand for beloved, quintessential Americana \u2014 appears repeatedly in Associated Press stories from the last century.<\/p>\n

Soldiers in both world wars pined for apple pie. A Texas mom shipped one to the Soviet headquarters in Manhattan for a visiting Nikita Khrushchev, prompting a bomb scare that shut down several midtown blocks.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

A freshly baked apple pie sits next to a window in Marlborough, Massachusetts, on June 26, 2026.(AP Photo\/Bev Biller)\n<\/p>\n

\"Assorted<\/p>\n

Assorted newspaper clippings with Associated Press stories related to apple pie. (AP Corporate Archives)\n<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

A freshly baked apple pie and a slice with whipped cream are displayed in Marlborough, Massachusetts, on June 26, 2026. (AP Photo\/Bev Biller)\n<\/p>\n

Show Caption<\/p>\n

1 of 3<\/p>\n

A freshly baked apple pie sits next to a window in Marlborough, Massachusetts, on June 26, 2026.(AP Photo\/Bev Biller)\n<\/p>\n

Expand<\/a><\/p>\n

The 1960s featured wars abroad and assassinations and social upheaval at home. Into that turbulence, McDonald\u2019s introduced a palliative in the rectangular form of a fried apple pie. I learned about that period \u2014 and that pie \u2014 in my post-WWII American history class.<\/p>\n

The first week, we had to submit something symbolizing America. With my mom-and-apple-pie worldview, I turned in a photo of a bald eagle. Mr. Bill Schechter, a counterculture devotee, was thoroughly unimpressed. Then two girls presented a McDonald\u2019s apple pie, representing corporations and consumerism having replaced mom\u2019s cooking.<\/p>\n

Mr. Schechter sprang from his chair and placed the little box atop his blackboard, both as a reminder of the lesson and to test the pie\u2019s preservative-laden staying power.<\/p>\n

Years later, the pie \u201clooked as fresh as ever,\u201d Mr. Schechter said by email. He reminded me that apple pies were Jack Kerouac\u2019s chief sustenance on his eye-opening, cross-country voyage in \u201cOn the Road\u201d<\/a> \u2014 and not the McDonald\u2019s variety.<\/p>\n

That mass-produced pie embodies a moment I started viewing America differently \u2014 as a place with strains and conflicts, where most ordinary people are decent and safeguard sweetness but dwell in the shadows of great and sometimes sinister forces.<\/p>\n

McDonald\u2019s reintroduced its fried apple pie<\/a> for America\u2019s 250th. Like Kerouac, I\u2019ll stick with what\u2019s homemade. Just don\u2019t ask for the secret recipe.<\/p>\n

Part of a recurring series, \u201cAmerican Objects,\u201d marking the 250th anniversary of the United States. For more American objects, click here<\/a>. For more stories on the anniversary, click here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By DAVID BILLER Flaky, golden crust. Apple juices bubbling through its vents. The scent of cinnamon. Apple pie…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":459414,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[117905,181194,147495,10131,74,76,75],"class_list":["post-459413","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-diego","tag-america-250","tag-apple-pie","tag-fried-apple-pie","tag-mcdonalds","tag-san-diego","tag-san-diego-headlines","tag-san-diego-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/459413","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=459413"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/459413\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/459414"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=459413"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=459413"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=459413"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}