Mmmmm Apples

There I was living in Tulsa, far from home, surrounded by four small boys, yearning for a touch of something familiar. It wasn't just that I missed all my family and friends, though of course I did. I had not lived home in years, but always close enough to visit whenever I wished. Tulsa, however, was another matter. The 23 hour drive was too daunting to undertake even for a long weekend.

Perhaps I should have been ready for the culture shock, having lived at various times in Texas, but I still hadn't learned to appreciate each area for the goodness it presented and to forgive it for not seeing things the way I had been raised. I did develop a fine appreciation for the one-mile square grid layout of the city, making every destination easy to locate. And I continued to appreciate the vast blue skies and gentle winter weather, though for the life of me I could not adjust to rattlesnakes on the patio or the vividness of dead grass painted green.

It was in the food department however that I felt most bereft. Perhaps it was because our family always had a vegetable garden, as did my Grandmother. There is nothing like the flavor of a fresh vegetable picked just seconds before devouring. Or perhaps I have always taken comfort in foods that played a major role in all of our family activities and celebrations. After all the years of tables laden with opulent foods encountered only during holidays, who would not equate good times with eating?

So in the fall, my thoughts naturally turned to apples, remembering all the family outings to pick up seconds (apples fallen to the ground and bruised) in the local fruit orchards, the smell of the rotting squished fruit on the grass beneath the trees, dodging bees that hovered expectantly around the cider press, inhaling the tantalizing smell of doughnuts fresh from the hot grease that were inevitably linked with fresh cider and sold at all respectable fruit stands.

I went to the local Piggly-Wiggly and perused the bins stacked with several types of apples. Pickings were slim compared with the bountiful menu of an actual fruit orchard. Piggly-Wiggly only offered a few varieties - delicious, macs and jonagolds. Where were the spies, cortlands, empires, galas, granny smiths, wolf rivers, macouns, greenings, romes, winesaps and jonathans to name but a few?

Well, an apple is an apple, I sighed. I selected macs - you can't go wrong with a macintosh, can you? I carried my prize home, thinking how wonderful they would taste. After carefully putting the groceries away, I opened the plastic bag, selected the biggest, reddest apple and carefully sliced it in fours. Juice spattered on the counter, tantalizingly. A faint scent of apple wafted up from the cutting board. I doled out the cored slices to the three older boys and took one for myself. If I were frugal, I could make the bag last a whole week.

I watched the boys eat, then bit my own quarter, expecting the familiar tangy apply flavor. The texture was as I remembered it - chewy and soft. Where was the juice running down my chin? How disappointing the taste! Nothing like I had grown up with. The whole experience was rather like chewing cardboard, a sham, an exercise in futility. This was definitely NOT an apple.

It may well be that the healthy vitamins and minerals were there, but the experience did not make you crave another. In fact, it was the same with apple pies and applesauce and cider. There just wasn't any real flavor. I guess they never heard of my father's secret recipe for cider where he mixed just the right blend of apple varieties to get that special distinct apple taste. We always froze a few gallons to pull out for special occasions. Nor did they have my Mother's applesauce recipe, the one where you cook the apples whole then sieve out the skins and seeds. The color of the skin makes the applesauce a delightful pink, and the flavor of the warm ambrosia is out of this world. You couldn't even begin to put together that kind of treat from the varieties offered in most grocery stores (except maybe Wegmans).

I suppose part of the experience was being around when the apples were cooking, watching the steam rise from the deep 8 quart stock pot and fog the windows, smelling the aroma for hours, impatiently waiting for that first taste - you just can't get that out of opening a store bought jar of applesauce.

Now that we are back in NY, Kiel was chomping at the bit to go apple picking. But my sisters beat us to the punch and while Deb was up visiting from Tennessee, she determined to get some REAL apples to take back with her (having experienced the same taste challenges that I did in Oklahoma), and she very kindly delivered a huge sack of all different kinds of apples before she left town.

I'm not sure they will make it into applesauce. I am enjoying eating them raw - what a treat to select the flavor I want and bite into succulent, amazing, tangy apple flavor. I am careful to eat no more than a half an apple a day, giving the other half to Drew in an effort to encourage him to eat healthy. Perhaps I will succumb this weekend and make just a small batch of applesauce. Kiel is threatening to make an apple pie, and I hope he actually does! I'm not sure if it will keep the doctor away, but at very least I hope not to have any health incidents related to suddenly ingesting a boatload of fiber.