As American as apple pie

Shorthand for "quintessentially American" and an apple of discord.

The other day, in the context of our German chocolate cake debate, another big food fight broke out about the idiom "as American as apple pie".

Some jester said: You mean the ApplePi, the old 3.14 patented by Cupertino for use in pie charts?

After the necessary reprimand, we turned our attention back to the baked good known as apple pie.

The baseline argument was: how can we Americans appropriate apple pie despite the fact that it has been around since before we gave it the meaning of quintessentially American?

Isn't pop corn much more American?

Well, if you take it literally, yes, you could say that. But idioms are characterized by the fact that their meaning is "beyond literal", they embody a concept, an image that has only a cursory factual base, if any.

If you want, you can even claim that "as American as apple pie" is quintessentially American not in its "exclusion" (our pie!) but in its inclusion, reflecting American diversity at its finest -- many apple pies came to America from all over the world.

America not so much as a melting pot but as one big Hobart dough mixer!