Fall or winter?
Fall has arrived in Marshall — or is it winter? As I write this, I am overlooking the pond outside my back window and there already seems to be a layer of ice across it and only white in the yard – no leaves on the ground. Wait! The leaves are still on the tree not just in back but also in front. Darn maples – don’t they know it is time to shed those leaves?
Because this year’s date is evenly divisible by four with no remainder, this fall is a presidential election year — as if you hadn’t seen or heard that many times over. I will save my comment on that for the end of this column, but instead my stepson brought up another fall occurrence, but one that occurs every fall: It is apple time.
I am not sure whether he just got a new appliance or not, but he recently wrote a note to me about using an Instant Pot (or maybe he gave a brand name: Instapot) to make some applesauce. He included the method of preparation as well as the appropriate amount of cinnamon to add. That spurred my memory of growing up and a task that I could have done without.
jtr
We were fortunate to have friends and relatives living close by who had apple trees and an abundance of apples that they could not use so they became ours. That meant having to collect the apples in some old bushel basket(s) and hauling them using my brother’s and my trusty wagon. The wagon we parked outside our back door and then we lugged the apples down to the basement.
What came next was the torture, especially if it were a warm, fall day. In our basement was an old three-burner gas range – no oven, just the three burners. My mother supervised our cutting the apples into smaller pieces and dropping them in some water in pots on two of the burners.
On the third burner, heated water was used to sterilize quart canning jars (Mason, Kerr, Ball Brothers) and lids. The jars were not the clear kind, but the blue or bluish-green jars. The lids were a heavy metal (a bit of zinc in them maybe?) with a milk-colored glass inside the lid. Sealing was not by a water bath like I have been using for quite a few years lately when making jelly, but instead there was a rubber ring that was put on the jar before screwing on the lid. Later, when we opened one of the completed applesauce jars, it required a pair of pliers to pull out the rubber ring before unscrewing the top.
Now for making the applesauce: This was the most odious part for me as my job was to man the chinois — that’s a word I did not know back then, but I have since learned chinois is the name of a cone-shaped colander, with a pestle, that usually stood on three legs allowing a pan below the holes of the “colander or sieve” to collect the sauce. The apples were dipped from the hot water and placed into the chinois and I had to use the pestle to squeeze out the sauce. The sauce was hot. I sweated and complained, of course, but the task master (my mother) said something like, “Oh come on. You’ll enjoy the applesauce throughout the winter at meal times.”
Of course the chinois did not allow apple skin or seeds or the apple core to squeeze through, so every now and then I was required to scrape out the inside of the chinois to prepare for a new batch of the hot apples to be added for squeezing.
jtr
The finished jars of applesauce, when cooled, went to the other end of our basement where there was an unheated room beneath the porch called the “jelly room.” I am not sure how many jars we made, but would estimate maybe 12 to 15 and they were added to the 12 to 15 jars of cherries we had picked and canned earlier in the summer. Again, we were fortunate to have friends and relatives who had cherry trees and again, my brother and I were the cherry pickers.
Interestingly, I can’t remember that my sister, who was six years older than I and three years older than my brother, ever participated in either the cherry or apple operations. Now and then, though not as regular as the cherry and apple operations, we also canned bought peaches. For vegetables, I also remember lots of green beans on the jelly room shelves.
On the cold floor (in the winter) just outside the jelly room, we also often had a 100 pound sack of potatoes. I remember getting the potatoes from a nearby farm. Potatoes were not rationed during WWII so they were a staple at our house for every evening meal that I remember. Chicken was also not a rationed item and a number of times we bought live chickens which we then had to slaughter in our back yard – interesting for my young mind to see a headless chicken running around the yard.
jtr
Now for my closing comment about the election.
This will be the last column I write before Nov. 3 and it is on the editorial page, hence one might expect an opinion.
In thinking about it, I have decided that I am really for MACA regardless of what happens next week. No I did not misspell that: MACA is my hope that we can Make America Civil Again. Are you with me?
Until next time: Oh, Fiddlesticks!