All-american apple pie

The phrase "as American as apple pie" is curious, since food historians have found apple pies in English cookbooks as early as the 14th century. The first American cooks who made them were clearly imitating their English ancestors.

But the right to claim apple pie as our own has been earned in the centuries since. We are a nation of remarkable pie bakers, of old-fashioned country cooks with rough hands, but a surprisingly delicate touch when it comes to forming dough. All around the country there are firm notions of what constitutes a desirable baking apple, what should spice or season a pie, how sweet it should be and which fat should be worked into the flour for maximum flakiness.

The ultimate compliment for apple pie crust, in fact, is that it is flaky, with a texture that seems created from several tissue-thin layers. Veteran bakers work the fat into the flour with the same three-pronged fork their grandmothers used, according to the reliable family formula (memorized proportions), rolling the dough on an old cloth or board used especially for that purpose,

shaping the pie in a tin pie "plate."

Table Talk Pie Bakery, a New England institution for 60 years until its demise in 1984, was once the largest baker of pies in the East. At first, the pies were sold in tin pie plates (for which the customer left a deposit) inscribed with the boast that these pies were "mother's only rival."

Today, mother's rival is a pie crust mix or a frozen or refrigerated pie crust. Whatever the quality of these prepared doughs, however, none of them can possibly compete with homemade pie crust. But making pie crust is a messy production, and many people have never really mastered the technique. There might be only a couple of occasions each year -- at the beginning of apple picking season, and again for Thanksgiving -- when the urge comes for homemade apple pie.

Following are a handful of apple pies, with special instructions for the novice pastry maker. Of these recipes, the simplest pie, a classic in France, is the open-faced galette. The American lattice apple pie has a crust that rolls easily, but the unseasoned baker might want to make a top crust with slits instead of cutting strips for a lattice. The apple custard tart is for accomplished bakers (and sophisticated palates -- the apples marinate in brandy first).

Once the process begins, making apple pies becomes as much a nostalgic experience as a culinary adventure: The smell of apple pie baking is a nearly universal American childhood aroma. One real estate agent tells clients to bake an apple pie when prospective buyers are coming, to fill the house with that irresistible smell.