My mom made the crust with just a couple teaspoons of vinegar, which you couldn't taste at all after baking. I think maybe it was to reduce the glutenization. One big factor in making good crust is to not mix it too much. She used a fork.

I've got her recipe for the crust, but not the apple pie. If I could ask her what was different, she'd say, "You just make an apple pie and add a lot more cinnamon that what the recipe calls for." We also had a big hunk of cheese with apple pie - cheddar cheese, the stinkier the better. My parents referred to the appropriately aged cheese as 'rat trap' cheese. I loved cheese and I loved my mom's apple pie, but I remember thinking that the combination was something truly bizarre that adults did. I learned to love it though.

I think the separation between apple-pie eaters in the US who like cheese and those who don't may be geographic, with the cheddar fans being in the north east, but I don't know.