Faux foods are as American as mock apple' pie

MILWAUKEE (MCT) — No matter what you may read in the next few paragraphs, remember this: A diamond anniversary is no mocking matter. Reaching the age of 75 is an achievement; to do it without changing much from the day you were born is this side of a miracle.

Such is the case for the classic American recipe known as the Ritz Mock Apple Pie, which first appeared on the back of the cracker box in 1934. This dessert is exactly what it says it is, a pie made out of Ritz crackers and a few other select ingredients, which together mimic the flavor of apple filling.

Yes, this is an actual recipe.

With our 21st-century zeitgeist that snubs overly processed food in favor of organic produce and eating in season, not to mention our year-round access to most ingredients, it's hard to imagine a period when culinary trends would demand a replacement for the humble apple.

But the Ritz Mock Apple Pie is in fact one in a long line of "mocks," culinary impersonators stretching as far back as Roman times. Every time you bite into a mock apple pie, savor a tangy bit of mincemeat or chew on a marzipan "vegetable," you are enjoying a taste of history.

Cooks in the Middle Ages were experts in manipulating food for the entertainment of eaters. Remember those "four-and-twenty blackbirds baked in a pie?" All true, says Terese Allen, a Madison cookbook author and food folklorist. Well, mostly true: They would cook the pie, leaving an opening in the crust to trap one or two live birds just before serving, which would flutter out when a server cut into the dish.

Elaborate dishes purporting to be something they were not were de rigueur among the wealthy in early 17th-century France, according to Jennifer J. Davis, a University of Oklahoma historian who is writing a book about cooking trends of the period.

She points out that it was common for culinary magicians "to take something that was dead and make it look alive," by, say, removing the plumage of a bird, roasting the bird, then re-feathering it with its skin for presentation at the table.

"It's incredible," Davis says. "(That) kind of overwhelming artifice was really valued as a mark of elite cuisine; it was the mark of a really skilled cook."

The idea of imitation being the highest form of art continued into the 19th century, when cooks would spend weeks forming pastry into elegant, life-size shapes of exotic animals or miniature sculptures of buildings, and then stage complex table entertainments for dinner guests, who would tug on a section of crust to set in motion a domino-like display of pastry-in-movement.