On 10/16/2011 12:42 PM, Pennyaline wrote:
> On 10/16/2011 10:41 AM, Janet Wilder wrote:
>>
>> Though I have never personally used it, I don't remember any point in my
>> 65 years of life on this planet when canned apple pie filling was not
>> available at the grocery store. Why would anyone eat cracker pie?
>>
>
> Evidently, mock apple pie was actually created during the great American
> transcontinental migration, when foodstuffs like crackers and other
> dried goods were in plentiful supply because they traveled better and
> stored longer with less fuss. I don't doubt that the covered wagon and
> handcart pioneers of the nineteenth century would have had terrible
> difficulty packing and transporting fresh apples, and the opportunity to
> pick/forage fresh apples during the journey would have been a rare
> treat. Dried apples were probably brought along, but those were likely a
> treat too, saved for a special occasion and not an ordinary
> get-em-fed-just-to-live-another-day meal.


So you are saying there were Ritz crackers in the middle 1800's? From
what I have learned of the wagon trains of that era, it was hard enough
to bake a loaf of bread, no less a pie! I think those pioneers subsisted
on what their men could hunt, their women could forage and whatever
dried foodstuffs they could bring with them. If you had a recipe for
mock apple pie made with dried beans, I'd be more inclined to believe
it. :-)

> Yes, I'm sure that throughout most of the 20th canned pie fillings were
> available in stores. But that doesn't mean they were affordable.
>
> Further, your sixty five years of life on this planet don't necessarily
> include the Depression at this point, do they?
>

Nope. I'm of the first class of baby boomers, 1946. My mom and dad were
depression babies. Neither of their families could have afforded
store-bought crackers.

--
Janet Wilder
Way-the-heck-south Texas
Spelling doesn't count. Cooking does.