Apple pie (with Vermont cheddar, for breakfast, of course) has its original home in New England, which was the home of baking methods in the colonies.
As explained in R.H. Fisher's "Albion's Seed," the various colonies of the USA had dominant settlement patterns by regional British groups, which brought their regional cookways with them. To which were added the important cookways of Indians, Africans, Dutch, Germans and French, then Hispania, et cet.
The VERY crude equation of cookways (which also track certain accent patterns, but that's another story):
1. South (starting in Virginia/Maryland, then the Carolinas, et cet.) = southern/western England = frying, roasting and grilling; seasoned well; with lots of vegetables.
2. New England (then Greater New England, across the upper Midwest to the West Coast) = eastern England = baking; plainly prepared; rich in legumes.
3. Mid-Atlantic = English northern Midlands, plus the Rhine Valley folk = boiling; lots of pastes and dumplings
4. Appalachia = Scotland & Ulster = a mix of their rural ways (boiling and roasting), with a heavy emphasis on porridges (now corn instead of oats or barley) and buttermilk, et cet.
Answered by A Kumar
at
10:31 PM on January 19, 2009