American Cheese

I like pie with cheese. It's a New England thing. So when the waitress at the American Restaurant in New Boston, Ohio asked me if I wanted apple pie with cheese I was surprised and said YES! My nephew laughed and warned me. I wouldn't, he said. Another waitress mocked our waitress, yelling from behind a dingy wooden bar, Not the cheese on the pie again! In New England it is common to bake sharp white cheddar into the crust of the pie. Buttery and delicious. Sometimes hot apple pie is served with a bit of sharp cheddar on top of the crust. I knew the pie wouldn't be homemade and that if it was hot it would be from a microwave, but I miss New England and I like the buttery flavor of cheese with apple pie, so I accepted the offer. Then it came. A dull slice of cold American Cheese on top of cold factory pie with a double portion of pasty vanilla ice cream. My nephew gasped and our waitress waited proudly for me to try it. I swallowed hard and dug in. A truly all-American apple pie at the not-to-be-missed American Restaurant on route 52 in New Boston, Ohio. It's open 24/7 and especially interesting after midnight when the local bars push everyone out! Yum. For the very unverified record, I am told it was once illegal to serve apple pie in Vermont (and Wisconsin) restaurants without cheese (or some dairy product). So maybe the American Restaurant is being truly American, to the bluest letter of the somewhere in time law.