Chapter 16

DOMESTIC FRUITS

Widely cultivated as a cash crop, especially in higher elevations over much of Appalachia, apples have multiple virtues and hold pride of place among the fruits cultivated regionally. They keep well, come in many varieties, can be used in desserts as well as served as a side dish for the main part of a meal, lend themselves to preservation through both canning and drying and are healthy and delicious. Small family apple orchards were once commonplace (Jim’s family had one, even though they lived on the outskirts of town), and fruit figured prominently in regional diet.

Clarence Shore’s old-time fruit stand. Courtesy of Hunter Library, Western Carolina University.

While apples ruled as undisputed king among domestic fruits in the Appalachian South, others certainly have always enjoyed a significant place. Most self-sustaining farms or homesteads had not only apple trees but also peaches, one or two cherry trees (possibly both sweet and sour varieties), plums and both soft (eating) and hard (cooking) pears. The recipes that follow in this chapter are only part of the fruit picture, because many of the desserts and other sweets covered in subsequent chapters feature them as well.

Stewed Peaches

3 cups sliced fresh peaches or 1 (16-ounce) bag

frozen peaches

½ cup sugar

¼ cup water

Add all ingredients to saucepot and simmer for 10 minutes. Serve sliced cocoa bread with the peaches.

—Jim Casada

A bowl of blushing peaches. Tipper Pressley.

Spiced Pears

¼ cup water

⅓ cup brown sugar

¾ teaspoon cinnamon

¾ teaspoon nutmeg

2 cups soft (eating) pears, slices or halves

Combine water, sugar and spices in a saucepot. Bring to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer for 5 minutes. Add pears to the pot and cook, stirring frequently, for another 5 minutes.

TIP: Spiced pears are wonderful with a slice of pound cake or as a side dish.

—Tipper Pressley

A sink full of pears ready to be worked up. Tipper Pressley.

Fresh Pear Bread

3 cups all-purpose flour

1 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon baking soda

2 teaspoons baking powder

2 teaspoons cinnamon

¾ cup vegetable oil

1½ cups sugar

3 eggs

1 teaspoon vanilla

4 cups finely chopped soft (eating) pears

1 cup chopped nuts (optional)

Stir together flour, salt, baking soda, baking powder and cinnamon. Set aside. Mix oil and sugar. Add eggs one at a time, beating well after each. Mix in vanilla. Gradually add the dry ingredients until just incorporated. Batter will be dry until pears are added. Add pears and nuts; stir to combine. Spoon into two greased or parchment-paper-lined loaf pans. Batter will be thick. Bake at 350 degrees for 1 hour or until done. If using greased pans, cool for 10 minutes for easier bread removal.

TIP: Drained canned pears may be substituted for fresh ones.

—Tipper Pressley

Applesauce Pancakes

There are endless ways to gussy up pancakes, but most involve dropping some type of fruit, berry, chocolate or the like onto the top of a pancake already on the griddle. This approach is a notable exception inasmuch as the fruit goes into the batter as it is being prepared.

1 cup your favorite store-bought pancake mix

2 eggs

1 tablespoon cooking oil

¼ stick butter, melted

2 cups applesauce

½ cup buttermilk or enough to make a smooth batter

Blend all ingredients together by beating briskly with a whisk. If the batter is too stiff, add a bit more buttermilk; if it’s too watery, add a bit more pancake mix. Pour pancakes atop a well-greased griddle. Turn only once.

TIP: For a crunchy, nutty taste, add ½ cup chopped pecans.

—Jim Casada

Working up a batch of apples. Tipper Pressley.

Waldorf Salad

One of the most widely used ways of enjoying apples is in a Waldorf Salad. While the name might suggest it originated in the New York establishment of that name, such is unlikely to be the case. Never mind geographical origins; certainly, it is a fine way to enjoy fresh apples. In yesteryear, one of the standard ingredients, celery, wasn’t readily available in rural Appalachia, but this is no longer the case.

½ cup or a bit less mayonnaise

Splash lemon juice

2 cups unpeeled sweet apples, cored and chopped into small pieces

¾ cup chopped celery

½ cup chopped black walnuts

½ cup raisins

Mix mayonnaise with lemon juice, and once they are suitably blended, add the rest of the ingredients and toss just enough to coat everything with the mayonnaise/lemon juice mixture.

TIP: Chopped pecans can be substituted for black walnuts, but they don’t have the same bold and distinctive taste.

—Jim Casada

Canned Sweet Apples

For this recipe, sweet varieties such as Golden or Red Delicious, often styled “eating” apples, are ideal. More tart, “keeper” apples such as Staymans or Winesaps are also fine, but they will require more sugar.

½ bushel apples, peeled and sliced

10 cups sugar

2 or 3 tablespoons ascorbic acid color keeper or lemon juice, to avoid browning

After peeling and slicing apples and then treating with color keeper, cover with 10 cups of sugar and allow to sit overnight in the refrigerator.

After sitting overnight, cook apples in a large pot until tender. Between the sugar and the juice released from the apples, you probably won’t need to add any water. Pack in hot jars and seal. Process for 15 minutes in a boiling water canner.

In both our homes, canned apples have long been a central and cherished dietary item. Served as a side dish, they were called sauce or sometimes just fruit. They aren’t a true sauce, at least consistency-wise, but rather chunks of cooked apples.

TIP: A bowl of fruit from a jar, warmed and topped with a pat of butter and then adorned with a couple of crumbled sugar cookies, makes a dandy dessert.

—Jim Casada

Jars of newly canned apples. Tipper Pressley.

Fried Apples

6 to 8 eating apples such as Red Delicious, Fuji, Golden Delicious or Gala varieties

¾ cup sugar

Generous pinch cinnamon (or a heaping teaspoon of tiny red heart cinnamon candy)

¼ stick butter

Core each apple and cut into eighths, leaving the skin intact. Place in a large stewpot and add sugar, cinnamon and butter. Heat until bubbling, stirring steadily with a wooden spoon, and then cut back to a simmer while continuing to stir. Cook until apples are completely soft. Depending on the variety, slices will remain intact or soften to the point of falling apart.

In truth, this process is one of stewing apples, but invariably they are described as fried. Smaller batches can actually be prepared in a frying pan. If the consistency of the peel bothers you, remove it before beginning to cook, but by doing so, you discard both taste and fiber.

—Jim Casada

Stewed Sour Cherries

When I was a boy, we had a mammoth Montmorency cherry in the backyard that bore limb-bending quantities of fruit, predictably and prolifically, year after year. With the aid of a whole bunch of expedients—dangling tin pie plates, a scarecrow, my trusty Red Ryder BB gun coming to the rescue and plenty of yelling out the window—we usually managed to keep to birds away to a sufficient degree to obtain a good harvest. Pitting the result was a tedious process, but one of the end results I dearly loved was stewed cherries. Reaching the point of being ready to cook the cherries may have been demanding, but the actual preparation was the essence of simplicity.

1 quart or ½ gallon sour cherries, pitted

Sugar to taste (figure at least 1 cup per

1 quart fruit)

John Walker with a batch of just-picked cherries. Courtesy of the National Park Service.

Place pitted cherries in a large pan or small stewpot; stir in sugar. Turn the burner to medium heat (to the point where the cherries are simmering) and stir constantly as the cherries cook. They should be ready to eat after 5 to 7 minutes of simmering.

—Jim Casada