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Daughter Hallie recently received a windfall of 20 pounds of cosmic crisp apples, so she bought a food mill and made apple butter and sauce. Over the weekend, I also worked with cosmic crisp apples to make juice for jelly. Apple juice adds pectin and also moderates the strong flavor of the elderberries. And as I’ve said, I made the elderberry juice too thin this year, so I rightly surmised that apple juice would correct the jelly potion.
Anyway, Hallie and I discussed making applesauce. “Why do we think we have to peel the apples,” she asked, to which I responded: Yes, people cook apples with peels and cores, but my mother refused to do that. She said she could taste the peels. (She was sensitive to some flavors -- or maybe just stubbornly opinionated.) Her method was to peel and core the apples (she used yellow transparents) and chunk them into a pot. She added water, brought the pot to a boil, and then simmered it until the apples broke down, mashing it smooth as needed. At this point, she added the sugar – lots of sugar – and simmered the apples long enough for the sugar to melt. Mother’s applesauce was a sweet-tart confection. (Makes my jaw ache to think of it.)
I think Mother bought the yellow transparents from an orchard, and later she had her own tree. Besides the sauce, she made apple pies for the freezer. Yellow transparents are definitely cooking apples – one of the tartest varieties. I have never seen them in supermarkets. I haven't seen them in years -- period.
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But with a food mill, we can certainly make quick work of applesauce. In
fact, it's really impractical to peel small apples for sauce. However, my food
mill is a food foley, and I have not been impressed with its efficiency. In
fact, it seems to leave black oily-looking traces in the sauce. So, I’m
thinking of buying a food mill. Do you have one? What kind is it?
Mother also bought a box of yellow delicious apples every year which she kept at the foot of the basement stairs. The aroma of ripening apples filled the back door entry, called the “service porch.”
We have far more apple varieties in the grocery stores today than we did “back in the day.” I remember red and yellow delicious apples, and that’s about it. I was working in Boston in 1972 when a friend showed up munching a Granny Smith. Neither my roommate nor I had seen one prior to that. And I remember watching a talk show on television in the 1990s where an apple expert explained new varieties coming onto the market. He said that within a few years, the delicious apple would be replaced. KW
[Confidential to Chuck: The wheat is sprouting.]
5 comments:
Thanks, and good luck with the apples.
I bought the OXO food mill. Some food mills are designed with a tapered body such that it kind of nests onto a certain sized bowl. The OXO food mill has hinged silicone feet that fold out so that you can fit them over whatever size bowl you have. Then you can fold in the feet for storage. It comes with three different sized mill inserts. It's kind of an expensive item, but I figure it's the only food mill I'll ever own. I got mine at Bed Bath and Beyond, and if I hadn't needed it THAT day, I would have tried to get one of their 20% off coupons for the purchase.
I didn't add any sugar to my applesauce and it's plenty sweet!
I haven't made applesauce in years but I used a cone shaped strainer type thing with a heavy wooden "bat" to push down the apples and mush them into a bowl. I can't find it so I think I gave it to Amy years ago. Good work Kathy and Hallie!!
Chris, you have described the chinois strainer. I have one for straining the berry juice for jelly in which case I line the cone with cheesecloth and let the juice drip into a bowl. I found a larger one at a rummage sale last month and bought it, so now I have two.
Interesting that you pressed the cooked apples through that strainer. That method seems difficult to me. You must be strong! But then, the food foley is difficult, too. Maybe I try to do too much at a time.
Homemade applesauce was a staple in my mother's home, and I guess I think homemade is still the best, but as a rule, I don't make it either. However, some of the country apple trees at the farm are quite small -- probably crabapples. They make delicious sauce and pies, but it's time-consuming to peel and core them.
Hallie, I'm going to look into the OXO.
It has been unclear to me how much mass I'm supposed to add to the food mill at a time, so I worked 1 - 2 soup ladle's worth at a time. That seemed to work, and it wasn't hard to spin the arm. I think my applesauce is smoother than what you buy, but the larger sized mill would have allowed seeds through. I don't mind the smooth sauce, it's just an observation about the method of not peeling and coring the apples.
On another note: regarding my aspiration to can my own soup...I think I'm going to wait until next year. I read that you must use a pressure canner for soups to ensure you do not foster an environment for botulism. I'm not yet ready to invest in a pressure canner and its storage (but I will be!). In the meantime, I will do some research about this endeavor. I am excited about a future life with a whole pantry shelf full of my own delicious soups!
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