PRESERVING FRUIT - Pickling and Preserving: The Foxfire Americana Library - Foxfire Students

Pickling and Preserving: The Foxfire Americana Library - Foxfire Students (2011)

PRESERVING FRUIT

BLEACHING

MRS. TOM KELLY: “Peel and core apples; cut into quarters or eighths. Fill a ten gallon wooden tub with sliced apples; then put two tablespoons of sulfur in a saucer and strike a match and set th’ sulfur on fire. Cover th’ tub with a clean cloth and let it stay all day. At night, take th’ sulfur saucer out. Repeat the process for three days. Then transfer th’ apples to large jars and tie clean cloths over them. You could eat that any time in th’ year or winter without any preservation.

“Everbody nearly bleached fruits. And it was th’ sulfur that whited th’ apples, and they had a little sulfur flavor. But most of th’ people had a big tub of that made every year.”

MRS. CARRIE DILLARD GARRISON: “Another way we had of preserving fruits was to burn coals until there wasn’t any smoke, any fumes, or anything from it—hickory coals usually. Hickory coals would hold th’ heat longer and stay alive longer, so we’d put those under a barrel [in the bottom of a barrel]; and then we’d have our fruit cut in small pieces, and put it in an open basket. We used split baskets, y’know, made out a’oak splits, and we’d put th’ fruit in that and hang it in th’ top a’th’ barrel. But we’d sprinkle our sulfur over th’ coals first; then we’d hang th’ fruit in th’ barrel, and then we’d cover th’ fruit with a old sheet or somethin’ to hold th’ fumes in there, and let it stay in there about twenty, thirty minutes. Then we’d take it out and pack it in a wooden barrel usually. We didn’t have churns or anything like that to put it in. They were scarce. So we’d pack ours in a wooden barrel we’d made—a homemade barrel—and we’d fix a barrel full of each fruit, and they wouldn’t any insects or anything bother it. All y’had to do was keep it covered tight—keep things out of it, like mice and things like that.

“We’d make pies; cook it for breakfast. Or it just taste like fresh apples. It’d be white though—th’ apples’d be white. It’d take all th’ color out of them.”

MRS. ALGIE NORTON: “You’d take a box about two foot high and about two foot wide—a wooden box. Then y’put’cha somethin’ to hold your fruit up about six inches from th’ bottom; y’put’cha somethin’ that ya’ can put’cha some coals in—not blazin’, but burnt coals. And y’have to pare your apples and peel them and core them—cut’em in about eight pieces to the apple. And y’gotta have some kind of a rack—course now y’use a screen wire to go over a little frame with about an inch or two sides around it. And put your screen over th’ bottom and put’cher apples in that.

“And y’have your live coals and put about two heapin’ spoonfuls of sulfur in amon’ th’ coals, and it blazes up for a minute. An’ set your apples down, an’ cover your box good, but you wanta paste that box with paper or somethin’ so that no air can escape. An’ cover it up an’ let it set about thirty minutes an’ put in more sulfur—an’ do that for two or three times.

“Then y’take ya’apples out’n pack’m in jars and put a cover over, an’ they’ll keep til spring.”

Later, Mrs. Norton added that if screen was not available, a person might use the same short-sided wooden box, but mount a slat bottom in it rather than a screen one. The bottom might even be a solid piece with holes bored in it—anything so that the fumes from the sulfur could get to the fruit. She also warned that the fruit must be stirred each time fresh sulfur was added, and that a quilt could be used to cover the box if one wished.

Mrs. Gatha Nichols added one twist to bleaching fruit for the person who wants to do it only on a small scale. For this person, she recommends the use of a churn, a teacup with sulfur and a single coal, and a cloth to cover the churn with.

DRYING

We have been fascinated by the sight of trays of sliced fruit drying in front of a fireplace. At one time this was an extremely common way of preserving foods for the winter. Now, although it is no longer a necessity, some mountain people continue the habit. Mrs. Grover Bradley, who had both a churn and several trays of sliced apples warming beside her fireplace when we last visited with her, said, “We had to eat things like that. They wadn’t no other way to live. We dried everything.”

APPLES—Apples are either sliced up into thin slivers, or cored and sliced into rings. One woman claimed that with a peeler, she could core, peel, and slice a bushel of apples in fifty-four minutes.

The rings were strung on a broomstick or a pole; slices were spread out on boards. Then they were set out in the sun or in front of the fireplace, depending on the weather, until the slices were brown and rubbery. This usually took two to three days. Some people say that they brought the fruit in at night to protect it from the dampness. Others simply covered the fruit with canvas at night. While drying, it was turned over frequently so that it would dry evenly.

One woman used to heat the dried slices in the oven for a few minutes at 225° to kill any germs. Other just packed them without heating. When dry, the apples were usually taken up and stored in sacks for use during the winter.

As Mrs. Grover Bradley said, “That makes th’ best fried pies I ever eat.”

Peaches were dried just like apples. Small berries such as blackberries were simply spread out on boards to dry and were not sliced.

USING SYRUP

CROCK GRAPES—Collect dry, sound fox grapes. Pack them in a churn and pour boiling hot fresh molasses or syrup over them. Take two clean cloths; dip the first in hot beeswax and the second in hot tallow, and tie each cloth separately around the top of the churn.

Make this in the fall when the grapes are fresh and ripe. Then set the churn in a cool place until winter. They can be eaten during the winter after they are mildly fermented.