Apple Butter

I wanted to write about the gross doublespeak coming out of the Bush Administration this week regarding the Amnesty International report, and perhaps I will. But it will require some time because the examples of the doublespeak are so good they have to be quoted directly. But I don’t plan to spend the time on that right now, so…

So you see why I haven’t posted anything in the last week. There just hasn’t been a whole lot going on that I feel the need to comment on. Yeah, the Senate compromise is great. Sure, the Dutch echoed the French and put another nail in the coffin of the EU constitution. But so much has and will be said about all of that; I just don’t need to add to it.

Instead, I’d like to direct your attention to the following website.
Old Timey Apple Butter

This is an article about how they used to make apple butter, back in the day. The article was written in 1973, which is not at all back in the day. In fact, it's worth noting that the author's great grandmother and great aunt are responsible for the recipe, and they started making apple butter 50 years before. That would be 1923.

I happened upon this article in looking for apple tree cultivation tips (an apple seed I planted in a pot last September has suddenly sprouted), and being a fan of apple butter I was intrigued. If you've never had real apple butter, or even the fake kind you get in the store, you are missing out on of life's sublime culinary pleasures. The basic idea of it is apple butter that's been cooked down and spiced, but that simple description is woefully inadequate. It's a thick, spreadable butter that's great on cornbread, pancakes (and healthier than syrup), English muffins, toast, just about any kind of bread really.

But lately, I haven't had any really good apple butter. The stuff you get in the store pales in comparison to apple butter made the traditional way, and always has too much cinnamon and a sharp, unpleasant aftertaste. Most apple butter you can buy in "country" stores these days is cooked in a crock pot, using a recipe like this here. It's better than the store-bought, but still a far cry from the real thing--especially if, God forbid, you actually add Red Hots. That's just wrong.

What's had me pondering lately is the very unlikelihood that I will ever get apple butter made the way Aunt Helen and Great-Gran were making it in 1973--which means I'll never get really good real apple butter again. Unless, that is, I decide to make it myself.

Time, they say, is money, and it's true enough to all of us. I value my time far more than money, because you can make more money. Making time, despite our constant references to doing so, remains out of the reach of science and probably always will. But I wonder about the things we value our time for these days, myself included. Nearly all of us "make time" for television shows that will be replayed and eventually come out on DVD anyway when we can watch them while cleaning the house on a rainy day. Many of my friends "make time" to get fall-down drunk on Fridays, and then make time to sleep off the hangover on Saturday. Most people seem to make time to sit in traffic on the way too and from work every day, instead of moving closer to work or changing their hours around. But nobody that I'm aware of makes time to get together with the whole family and spend one Saturday a year making apple butter, keeping the generations connected and keeping old traditions alive.

I wonder about that. The world is little enriched even by very good television shows; it is much the poorer without good old-fashioned apple butter.