When your weekend guests bring you apples and you already have apples, what do you do? You make apple butter. Simmering apples in my slow cooker, the aroma sends my mind spinning back to the utensil for making apple butter was a copper lined kettle over a wood fire.
The farm of my childhood had the remnant of a ancient apple orchard that still had quite a few trees still bearing a variety of apples whose names elude me, but whose bounty was gathered thankfully every fall by my family. Some went immediately to a cider press to fill a wooden stave barrel where the apple juice would eventually turn to vinegar, after going through a tasty period of sweet cider.
Excess apples were stored in a bin in a root cellar and remained crisp for most of the winter months. They were our after dinner snack, along with popcorn, as we sat around the radio anxiously listening for news from World War II. Gabriel Heatter’s greeting of “There’s Good News Tonight” became his catch phrase and we rejoiced as our brother Joe was in the Pacific theater. Abbott and Costello, Amos and Andy were welcome amusement when the world had little to laugh about.
So, this effort of mine seems a bit mundane in comparison to those days, but the aroma is undeniably the same, and once it is spread across my toast, the essence of that long ago family time will warm my heart once more.
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