where did apple pie originate

Apple pie as we know it today originated in medieval England, not the United States, though the idea of apple-filled pastries grew out of much older European and Middle Eastern pie traditions.

Quick Scoop: Where did apple pie start?

• The earliest known written recipe for apple pie dates to 1381 in England, in a collection sometimes linked to Geoffrey Chaucer’s era.

• That recipe used apples, figs, raisins, pears, and a pastry shell, and it originally did not include sugar.

• Apples themselves trace back to wild ancestors in Central Asia (modern Kazakhstan) and spread into Europe over many centuries before showing up in English pies.

• Dutch and other European cooks were also baking their own styles of apple pies by the 1500s, especially in the Netherlands.

• European colonists later carried both apple varieties and pie-making traditions to North America, where apple pie became deeply tied to U.S. identity and the phrase “as American as apple pie” took hold.

So is apple pie “American” or “English”?

You can think of it in two layers:

1. Origin of the dish
   • The first clearly documented apple pie is English, from the late 14th century.

 * Similar fruit pies then show up across Europe, like Dutch apple pie in the 1500s.

2. Origin of the symbol
   • In the U.S., apple pie became a cultural symbol of home, comfort, and national pride, especially from the 19th and 20th centuries onward.

 * That’s how a very old English (and broadly European) dessert came to be branded as a core part of American identity.

Mini timeline

1. Apples domesticated and spread from Central Asia into Europe over many centuries.

2. 1300s: First known English apple pie recipe written down (1381).

3. 1500s: Dutch cookbooks include apple pie, with their own twist of spices and ingredients.

4. 1600s–1700s: European settlers bring apple trees and pie recipes to North America.

5. 1800s–1900s: Apple pie becomes strongly associated with American home cooking and patriotism.

At-a-glance table

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Aspect	Details
First known apple pie recipe	England, 1381, medieval cookbook tradition.
Earlier roots	Pies and filled pastries from Europe and the Middle East; apples domesticated in Central Asia.
Other early variants	Dutch apple pies documented in the 1500s in the Netherlands.
Spread to America	European settlers brought apple varieties and pie recipes to North America in the 1600s.
Why “American” today?	Adopted as a symbol of U.S. home cooking, abundance, and national identity in the 19th–20th centuries.

In short, if you’re asking “where did apple pie originate,” the historical answer is England , but its famous “American” identity is a much later cultural story built on that medieval English dish.

TL;DR: Apple pie’s documented origin is medieval England, but it evolved through European traditions and later became an iconic American symbol after being adopted and popularized in the United States.

Information gathered from public forums or data available on the internet and portrayed here.