Apples!

Picking, Drying, Cider, Ketchup, and Butter

SECRETS OF APPLE PICKING
1. Pick on a dry day because damp fruit is more likely to spoil.
2. Store fruit in a cool place soon after it is picked.
3. For safety's sake, pick into something that leaves your hands free. This could be a bucket hanging from your belt, or a fruit-bag that fastens around your waist and hangs like an apron down your front.
4. For least bruising and best condition, pick each fruit by hand.
5. Bend the fruit upward. Twist gently to free it from the branch. A ripe fruit should easily separate. Keep the stem in the fruit. If pulled out, rot can develop in the hole. 

DRYING APPLES
You have to slice them; they aren't dried whole. Fully ripe sweet apples are ideal. Usually they are peeled and cored and what's left is made into doughnut-type rings about 1/4-inch thick to oven dry, 1/8-inch to sun dry. Let the slices fall into cold water while you are working to prevent "rusting," 1/4 c. lemon juice or 1 t. ascorbic acid per 2 c. cold water. If your apples are small, wormy, or too mealy to make into doughnut rings, cut into slices of whatever shape you can. Old-timers then strung them on a thread and hung them in the sun, but now we usually just spread them out on a surface. Using an oven or dehydrator, dry them at 140° F on a cookie sheet--turning once in a while--until they are leathery.

UNPRESSED CIDER

You’ll need about a bushel of apples to make each 2-2½ gal. cider (or “juice”). Any kind of apples can be used, and you can try different blends for the sweetness-tartness qualities you prefer. Professional cider makers or serious hobbyists can get really picky about how much of what kind of apple, but hey, it’s all apple juice. The important thing is to find a way to make use of what you have. In general, good eating apples are also the best cider apples. The only apples you seriously shouldn’t use are sprayed apples, partly rotten apples, or apples that have been lying on the ground very long.

Even if you don't have a cider press you can make cider. Clean and cut your apples. Put them through a grinder or chopper, saving all the juice, and then squeeze your grindings through a strong cloth bag. 

APPLE KETCHUP

Peel and quarter a dozen round, tart applies. Stew  until soft in as little water as possible. Sieve them. For every quart of sieved apple, add 1 c. sugar, 1 t. pepper, 1 t. cloves, 1 t. mustard, 2 t. cinnamon, 2 medium-sized onions--chopped very fine, 1 T. salt, and 2 c. vinegar. 

APPLE-PLUM BUTTER

Use from 2 to 3 times as many apples as plums. Cut up the fruit and cook in a little water until tender. Then put it through the colander. Add sweetening. Continue cooking until the butter is thick enough to deserve the name. This is Mike's favorite. He likes it on waffles or pancakes or toast, and so do I and the children. 

[Adapted from "Temperate-Zone Fruits" in Chapter 6: Tree, Vine, Bush and Bramble. Illustration copyright 1994 by Cindy Davis]

As American as Apple...Cider?

The apple pie has long served as an emblem for all things American, right alongside the Stars and Stripes, the Liberty Bell, and the great golden arches of Mickey D’s. However, the Founding Fathers as well as the rest of Colonial America were more apt to take their apples in a different form: cider. John Adams confessed to starting each day with a “gill” (about a half cup) of hard cider, while Thomas Jefferson ensured that homemade cider was always on the table at Monticello. What better way then to celebrate the fruits of their brave efforts this Independence Day than to indulge in a little homemade cider of your very own?

Unpressed Cider

You’ll need about a bushel of apples to make each 2-2½ gal. cider (or “juice”). Any kind of apples can be used, and you can try different blends for the sweetness-tartness qualities you prefer. Professional cider makers or serious hobbyists can get really picky about how much of what kind of apple, but hey, it’s all apple juice. The important thing is to find a way to make use of what you have. In general, good eating apples are also the best cider apples. The only apples you seriously shouldn’t use are sprayed apples, partly rotten apples, or apples that have been lying on the ground very long.

Fortunately for most of us, it’s not necessary to have a cider press to make cider. Just clean and cut your apples, making sure to cut out any wormholes. Usually it’s handiest to cut all the apples in two pieces as you go, in order to get at the wormholes. Cut out rotten spots or scarred places where the apple rubbed against the tree. It isn’t necessary to take out the seeds. Then put the apple pieces through a grinder or chopper, saving all the juice. Squeeze your grindings through a strong cloth bag, and voilà! Apple cider!

For those who like their cider in a more solid form, here’s a delicious recipe for apple cider butter that’s great on toast, pancakes, or waffles:

Old-Fashioned Apple Cider Butter

This is the traditional apple butter made of pared apples boiled down with cider. Boil 6 c. apple cider in an enamel or stainless-steel pan. (Optional: For extra redness start with 12 c. cider and boil it down to 6 c.) While the cider is boiling down, core and quarter about 10 lb. of apples. Add apples when the cider is ready and continue cooking slowly until they’re tender. Put it through your colander. Put your butter back into the pan and add 1 ½ c. brown sugar (or more to taste—it depends some on the sweetness of your apple variety). Optional: add ½ t. ground cinnamon, ¼ t. allspice, ¼ t. cloves, and a pinch of salt. Continue cooking over very low heat, stirring a lot, until the cider and sauce do not separate when a spoonful is placed on a plate. Then pour into containers for canning or preserving.

If drinking (or eating!) cider to observe the national holiday just isn’t enough, try this inspiring read from Sasquatch Books: