Apples in Cookery

Most of the dishes made with apples that we know today are of early origin. For example, to cook apples with fatty meats, so that their sharpness offsets the fat, is a practice which dates back at least as far as classical times when apicius gave a recipe for a dish of diced pork with apples. Likewise the combination of fatty fish such as herring with apple, still popular in the Netherlands and N. Europe, is of ancient origin. The versatility of apples was already being exploited in medieval times; the forme of cury and the menagier de paris (14th century) give a range of recipes for apple sauce, fritters, rissoles, and drinks.