As American As...

Jon and I bought a house in Minnesota that came with four apple trees in the back yard. I tried to add to the appeal by using the apples in fall in various pies. I am not a baker, and I usually cheated on the crust. However, the idea of baking a pie from your own apples seemed so American, and homey.
I have shied away from baking here in Bulgaria because it seemed too much of a challenge, but now I am motivated. It is fall, I can look up recipes tagged as "easy" on line, and I can buy most of the ingredients locally. Here is my finished apple pie, and how it happened.

After finding a recipe I visited the local market for apples, butter and spices. I couldn't find sour cream, which the crust recipe calls for, so I substituted Bulgarian yogurt. I was particularly pleased to be able to use this yogurt since learning of its remarkable health benefits and

 unique variety of bacteria starter.
A colleague introduced me to how this yogurt is made from local bacteria, and it aids the digestion in ways other yogurts cannot.
As I started the crust, I found I had a practical math problem on my hands. Butter comes in 250 gram packets here, and the recipe calls for 1 1/4 cups. And what temperature is 375 degrees in Celsius?
I had plenty of time to work out the oven temperature, as the pastry needed to be refrigerated for an hour. The recipe had not specified what variety of apples to use, so I had bought three different types that looked good at the outdoor market.

It was only after getting all the apples cut, that I realized that I didn't have a rolling pin. So, of course, I used what I had readily available, and that was a wine bottle. It was empty, being given to us by a former student who graduated last year. This pie was seeming more Bulgarian than American at this point.

I was pleased with the look of the pie, and I have to remind you, I have never once tried to make a pie from scratch before. After putting it in the oven, I reread the recipe instructions for baking the pie, and discovered that it could take up to 2 hours to bake properly, and it had to be watched so that it didn't burn. They suggested using foil to protect the top.  A good idea when using an oven which you are not sure of the temperature!

I had no foil. So I left the pie in the oven, locked up the apartment, and took the elevator down to the street. Surely the local market would have foil! Well, they did have something that looked remarkably like it. However, it was in a box labeled in Bulgarian which I could read, and didn't help me as I didn't know the word for "foil". Without that knowledge it would not have helped to even try asking someone.
I was tempted to secretly open the box and peek inside... but didn't want to get caught. So I bought the box, took it home, and found out I had baking or parchment paper.  I was desperate to save my pie, so I made a tent out of the paper and covered the crust.
It worked, nothing caught fire, and the pie came out golden, not burnt.
I think my son was impressed, as he immediately snap-chatted a picture of the pie when he got

home from school. It passed the taste test, too!

As I had decided that this was a Bulgarian apple pie, I set the pie down on Bulgarian linens and pottery for this final picture. Then I began to wonder how the Americans have been able to claim the apple pie as their cultural symbol.  They didn't invent the dessert, and apples are not native to America. One source suggested that the apple pie is typical of the American desire to take something from the old world, and make it new by improving it. They imported apple seeds, planted and grew them. Then added sugar and butter to the crust to create the tasty two crust pies loved today.
If struggling to make a better pie from local ingredients is a symbol of patriotism, then I think I must be living the American dream... or the Bulgarian one?