Slump (Apple Slump)

Entry in progress—B.P.
 
Dictionary of American Regional English
apple slump n [apple + slump] chiefly NEng, esp sNEng =apple pandowdy.
1831 Finn

140, The pumpkin pies and apple slump..were smoking on the table.
1848 Bartlett Americanisms 311, A favorite dish in New ENgland, called an apple slump, is made by placing raised bread of dough around the sides of an iron pot, which is then filled with apples and sweetened with molasses.
1903 Dialect Notes 2.295 Cape Cod, Ma.
1941 LANE Map 292, throuhgout eMA, CT, RI and less freq in ME, VT, NH, Apple slump.
1949 American Speech 24.106 SC, Apple slump...Deep apple pie (“old name”).
1951 American Speech 26.251 nNY.
1964 Amer. Heritage Cookbook 568, Louisa May Alcott’s Apple Slump. The author of Little Women was so fond of this New England dessert that she named her house in Concord, Massachusetts, Apple Slump.
1967 DARE File scMA (as of 1950s), Apple slump…apple-sauce-filled spirals of biscuit dough laid side-by-side in brown sugar syrup and cooked into a pudding.
   
(Oxford English Dictionary)
apple slump n. U.S. regional (chiefly New England) a dessert of sliced apples baked in a deep dish or pot with a topping of thick pastry; cf. SLUMP n.2 Additions and apple dowdy n.
1831 H. J. FINN Amer. Comic Ann. 140 The pumpkin pies and *apple slump..were smoking on the table.
1872 M. SCHELE DE VERE Americanisms 415 Apple-Slump is..a favorite New England dish, consisting of apples and molasses baked within a bread-pie in an iron pot.
1947 R. BEROLZHEIMER et al. U.S. Regional Cook Bk. 143 Rhode Island apple slump.
2004 Albuquerque (New Mexico) Jrnl. (Nexis) 6 Oct. C1 Granny Smith..is great for making pies, cobblers, Brown Betty, pandowdy or apple slump.
 
slump, n.
A dessert consisting of stewed fruit with a biscuit or dough topping; a fruit cobbler. U.S. (chiefly New England).
1831, etc. [see apple slump s.v. APPLE n. 3 c].
1905 Dialect Notes III. 19 Slump,..a dish of dough and fruit, as ‘apple slump’.
1939 I. WOLCOTT Yankee Cook Bk. 365 Slump. What State-of-Mainers call cooked fruit topped with dumplings or biscuit dough.
1947 BOWLES & TOWLE Secrets New England Cooking xi. 178 Both the grunts and the slumps were transition desserts, halfway between the boiled and baked puddings but simpler to make.
1965 National Observer (U.S.) 29 Nov. 20/4 But even the failures tasted good, so I told her to put on a brave face and call it a prized old New England recipe for blueberry ‘slump’.
1986 B. FUSSELL I hear Amer. Cooking IV. xvii. 313 In America, the English pudding pies made of custard and fruit..were named ‘slumps’, ‘crunches’, and ‘grunts’.
   
20 November 1830, Salem (MA) Observer, pg. 2, col. 3:
The pumpkin pies and apple slump, bacon and plum-pudding, were smoking on the table, when the old gentleman, gathering round him his smiling guests, said grace in the following manner: “May God bless us, and what is provided for us.”
   
Google Books
American Comic Annual
By Henry J. Finn
Boston, MA: Richardson, Lord & Holbrook
1831
Pg. 140:
The pumpkin pies and apple slump, bacon and plum-pudding, were smoking on the table, when the old gentleman, gathering round him his smiling guests, said grace in the following manner: “May God bless us, and what is provided for us.”
 
Google Books
November 1856, New Jersey Farmer, pg. 88, col. 2:
APPLE SLUMP.
Prepare good tart apples as if for stewing. Fill a stew-pan; put in sufficient water to prevent burning, and cover with a thick crust made by dissolving a little soda in buttermilk, and adding flour enough to make a soft dough. Cover it closely, and set over a slow, clear fire, and cook half an hour or more, according to size. Serve as soon as it is done, with a sauce of sour cream and molasses or sugar. This is superior, both in taste and healthfulness, to apple dumplings, as the crust, if eaten before it cools, is very light. 
   
Google Books
From Cape Cod to Dixie and the Tropics
By J. Milton Mackie
1864
New York, NY: Negro Universities Press
1968 reprint
Pg. 411:
And you shall nowhere eat such delectable ” apple slump ; ” nowhere such doughnuts, scarcely even in Connecticut ; nowhere such baked clams, out of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations.
 
Google Books
The Unrivalled Cook-Book and Housekeeper’s Guide 
By Mrs. Washington
New York, NY: Harper & Brothers
1886
Pg. 560:
Rhode Island Apple Slump—Twelve large sour apples, pared, cored, and quartered; three cupfuls of molasses; a little grated nutmeg and cinnamon.
   
Line the sides of a baking-kettle with crust made from raised dough, or plain crust made light with soda or cream of tartart; allow enough crust to fold over the top; put the apples in; sprinkle them with the spice; then pour in the molasses, fold the crust from the sides over the top, and cook for half an hour over a moderate fire.
   
Google Books
Mrs. Rorer’s Philadelphia Cook Book:
A manual of home economics
By Sarah Tyson Heston Rore
Philadelphia, PA: Arnold
1886
Pg. 432:
APPLE SLUMP
1 tablespoonful of butter
1/2 pint of milk or water
1 quart of flour
6 large tart apples
2 heaping teaspoonfuls of baking-powder
Sift the flour, add one teaspoonful of salt, and rub into it the butter; add the baking-powder and then the milk—more or less as the flour requires. The dough must be a little soft. Have the apples pared, quartered and cored; put them with one pint of water into a baking-dish, roll out the dough about one inch in thickness, cover it over the apples, cover the dish, and stew slowly in the oven for thirty minutes. When done, dust thickly with powdered sugar, and serve in the dish in which it was baked, with Hard Sauce in a separate dish.
 
Google Books
Americanisms - old and new.
A dictionary of words, phrases and colloquialisms peculiar to the United States
By John Stephen Farmer
London: Priv. printed by T. Poulter
1889
Pg. 20:
Apple-slump. — A pie consisting of apples, molasses, and bread crumbs, baked in a tin pan. This dish is an old favorite with New Englanders.
   
Google Books
The American dictionary of the English language based on the lastest conclusions of the most eminent philologists and comprising many thousands of new words which modern literature, science and art have called into existence and common usage
By Daniel Lyons
New York, NY: P. F. Collier
1892
Pp. 17-18:
APPLE SLUMP, a New England dish consisting of apples and molasses baked « it bin a bread pie in an iron pot.
 
24 August 1894, Idaho Register, pg. 2:
APPLE SLUMP.—Cut apples as for pies and fill a rich undercrust of a good thickness; cover with a thick top crust and bake in a slow oven for about an hour; when baked remove the top crust, add sweetening, seasoning, and butter half the size of an egg; then remove part of the apple. Place the top crust in an inverted position uponwhat remains, and the apple that has been taken out on top of that. Should be eaten hot.