Another food which is closely associated with Americans is apple pie．Apple pie is often served hot with a spoon of ice cream or a slice of cheese at the end of the biggest meal of the day—dinner, and it is a favorite dessert throughout the nation, if a person is typical of Americans, we can say, "He is as American as apple pie．"
It is true that the apple and apple pie do not originate in America, but the expression "as American as apple pie" is not the product of a pure imagination．As early as 1625, the English colonists, having brought orchards （果园） on this new land and in most of the colonial times, the apple was a main material of both plain and fancy cooking．The first Massachusetts governor, William Endicott, was one of many keen apple planters who helped to lay the foundations for today' s apple-growing industry in America．
A major attraction of the apple for the colonists was that it could be made into cider （苹果酒）. Like most Europeans, English colonists held a strong suspicion （怀疑） of drinking water, and since grapegrowing was
hindered by plant peats, cider became an alternative to wine．Cheap and easy to produce, it was the American drink of first choice well into the nineteenth century． Whether it was dried, raw or cooked, the apple also found its way into numerous colonial dishes, including apple sauces, pudding, stuffings and many desserts．Therefore, the conclusion to be drawn here is obvious．The apple pie became known as American, not because it was invented on this land （since it was proved that Europeans had been eating apple pies for centuries）, but because, thanks to the huge orchards in the states of Washington and New York, America became the world's largest apple-producing nation．
小题1:If a person is said to be as American as apple pie, it means that _______．
| A．he always prefers apple pie as a dessert | B．his favourite pie is apple pie |
| C．he behaves and thinks in the American way | D．he is good at making American apple pie |
小题2:The apple can be used to make into all of the following except _______．
| A．wine | B．sauces | C．pudding | D．cider |
小题3:The underlined word
hindered in Paragraph 3 means．________．
| A．promoted | B．prevented | C．improved | D．enlarged |
小题4:It can be concluded from the passage that_______．
| A．the apple pie was first served in America |
| B．the English colonists developed a taste for the apple only after they, arrived at the New World |
| C．the expression "as American as apple pie" is a pure imagination |
| D．the apple pie is traditionally associated with Americans due to their large apple production |
