The crust goes on whole and is then broken and perhaps stirred back into the filling. The Dictionary of American Regional English defines pandowdy as a deep-dish pie or cobbler, usually of apples, found chiefly in New England.
DARE’s earliest citation is from 1830, printed in 1834 in Seba Smith’s Life of Jack Downing. An 1838 footnote in Kettel’s Yankee Notions describes it as a large apple pie with a brown crust baked in a deep pan. A citation dated to about 1805 from the Pocumtuc Housewife was later judged spurious. The King Arthur Baking Sheet of 1991 placed the dish’s heyday in the 1800s and early 1900s.
Grunt and slump are its relatives, cooked on the stovetop or in an iron skillet with dumplings on top. The grunt reportedly takes its name from the sound it makes while cooking. Louisa May Alcott called her house Apple Slump.