My, my — it's American pie

2) Sweet potato pie
When I think of this classic Southern dessert, I think of my 16th birthday in Atlanta, Ga., at a legendary homestyle restaurant with my grandmother. This was a place where a meal wasn’t complete without a slice of sweet potato pie — and buttermilk fried chicken, mashed potatoes and fried okra, too.

Sweet potato pie [find recipes] is no doubt a Southern comfort food, most likely arriving via Africa by way of England, as an “Old World meets New World” recipe. This pie was originally a savory dish transformed by plantation slaves into something sweet, and the rest is history. Abby Fisher, a former slave and author of "What Mrs. Fisher Knows About Southern Cooking” (1881), used orange juice and orange peel in her recipe.

Sweet potato pie is very much like a pumpkin pie, perhaps more rustic and earthy in flavor. Classic pumpkin pie spices — cinnamon and nutmeg, typically, though ginger and allspice were also common additions — are folded into a puree of cooked sweet potatoes with sugar, eggs and cream, then poured into a rich crust and baked.

This is a one-crust pie, usually served with sweetened whipped cream, and sometimes with a covering of gooey marshmallows baked on top — a fluffy and extremely sweet holdover from mid 19th-century kitchens when marshmallows were in vogue.

1) Apple pie
This quintessential American favorite transcends borders and race lines like no other, according to John T. Edge, who traveled the country eating prime examples and then wrote “Apple Pie: An American Story” (2004).

Originally from Europe, apple pie [find recipes] was brought to our shores by the settlers, a comforting offering after a hard day, and it soon enough spread across the country, as did apple production, making the United States the world's largest producer of the fruit.

When I asked about the pie's origins, Edge replied in a recent e-mail: “There are origins and antecedents, but no one original. Such a pursuit is fruitless.”

Since 1999, Vermont has claimed the apple pie as their state pie, and Edge fondly recalls a slice of apple pie with Vermont cheddar. “I think they bake great pies up that way,” he says, “but no one state owns apple pie.”

At its very basic and most standard, apple pie is a generous helping of sliced apples, sugar and a touch of flour baked between layers of crust. And though each baker seems to have their own recipe, and perhaps a trick or two for their favorite crust, the classic apple pie recipe is rarely messed with.

Then there is Marlborough pie, a pie of shredded apples or apple sauce accented with sherry.

“I love it because it subverts the idea of what apple pie is oftentimes thought to be,” says Edge, “The addition of sherry gives it this musky sweetness.”

California-based Romney Steele writes about food for Edible East Bay and is working on a book about salad greens.