Joan Crawford Paired Pork Chops With This Tastier Swap For Applesauce

Joan Crawford is known for being a multifaceted Oscar-winning actress, film executive, and dancer, but behind the scenes, she was a dedicated gourmand. In fact, her favorite fruit was one that many modern foodies have never heard of before. In 1965, Crawford was interviewed by Vogue as part of Ninette Lyon's "A Second Fame: Good Food" series, highlighting famous actors' personal recipes. The San Antonio, Texas-born film star let the outlet in on her down-home favorites, and today, we're spotlighting one of her most timeless, dimensional recipes: a reimagination of the classic pork chops and applesauce duo. 

Instead of applesauce, Crawford topped her pork chops with fried apple rings. The jazz-age flapper starred in period flicks like "Our Dancing Daughters" (1928) before evolving into complex dramas like "Strange Cargo" (1940), "Mildred Pierce" (1945), and "What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?" (1962) – but she never lost her glamour, nor her taste for Southern comfort food. Crawford shared her recipe with the magazine not long before her death in 1977.

Pork chop and applesauce are a classic American combo, artfully riding the intersection of traditional and elevated comfort food. Applesauce's sweetness provides a moisture-packed, subtly spiced complement to the robust savoriness of those meaty chops. In Crawford's approach, the addition of red onions contribute a sharply savory element to the tasting profile, while the dried apple rings lend depth and texture. Here at Tasting Table, we've even stuffed our pork chops with toothy apple chutney to capture that craveable textural element.

It's possible that Crawford grew up chowing down on pork chops and applesauce. The actor was born in 1905, and recipes for the pairing appear in such seminal cooking texts as Volume 17 of "Good Housekeeping" from 1893, which prescribes, "Fry in own fat, and serve with sauce of cored, sliced apples stewed in brown stock, seasoned with salt and cayenne." The dish remained relevant, gaining major popularity during the post-World War II era as pork chops were an affordable protein and home-canning boomed. A century later, another recipe for pork chops and applesauce appears in Janeen Sarlin's 1991 "Food from an American Farm," a collection of three generations of family recipes, which records, "The universal combination of pork chops and applesauce is part of every family's tradition."

As instructed by her Vogue recipe, Joan Crawford's go-to take on the classic pairing starts with inch-thick pork loin chops. Those chops get salted and dredged in flour, then pan-fried in butter alongside two large, diced red onions. After browning on the stove, she transferred the pan into the oven to finish baking. Finally, to serve, Crawford garnished each pork chop with two warm fried apple rings, which she prepared by pan-frying green apples in butter, lemon juice, cinnamon, nutmeg, and brown sugar until browned but not mushy. Or, for more detailed prep instructions, feel free to take a cue from our warm spiced Southern fried apples recipe and our easy pork chops.