Food - Drink
The Long-Running ‘Apple Pie With Cheese’ Debate Rages On
By WENDY LEIGH
The pineapple-on-pizza debate may be a modern discourse, but the cheese-on-apple pie debate is at least a century old. The earliest mention of the combination comes from American poet Eugene Field’s late-1800s poem “Apple Pie and Cheese,” in which the author decries heretics trying to “dim the glory of apple pie and cheese,” and the debate has raged ever since.
Apple pie and cheddar cheese may seem like a strange combination partially because it’s a highly regional preference, with devout fans in the Midwest, New England, and the apple-growing state of Vermont. Some tout it as the perfect contrast between sweet, sharp, and salty, while others are left confused and missing an uncontroversial ice cream scoop.
Vermont even implemented a legal state statute in 1999 requiring a “good faith effort” to always serve apple pie with either milk, ice cream, or cheddar cheese. However, even within the cheese-on-apple-pie camp there are debates about how best to serve your cheese, whether baked into the filling, rolled into the crust, melted atop, or on the plate beside the pie.