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WHAT WAS OLD |
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Sketch courtesy of the Johnny Appleseed
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“An apple a day…,” the “apple of her eye, “keep everything in “apple pie order,” on it goes. The apple turns up in just about every corner of our tradition from Biblical to kitchen and barrooms. Apple dishes come with many names, from Brown Betty to Dowdy, April Food to Apple Frump. Apples are a mainstay crop, ready to be made into applebutter, baked, stewed: sweet or savory. Pressed, they become apple juice, ciders, sweet or fermented, and Apple Brandy. It’s debatable whether the Italians or the French introduced apples and cider to Western England, near the Wales border. In the 1300s monasteries regularly sold cider to the public. The drink was widely supposed to increase longevity. Farmers used to salute apple trees in a ceremony they called wassailing which means, “Be Thou of Good Health.” They’d drink their own health and to the health of the next year’s crop by pouring cider on the ground around the tree roots. The apple had an early and diligent crusader in the U.S. -- Johnny Appleseed, not a legend but a real person named John Chapman. Early in the 19th century, he became a folk hero when he went about North America’s unsettled frontiers before settlers arrived. Once there, he started apple orchards. This allowed the settlers to arrive and have an established, income-producing crop. Chapman was responsible for planting countless bushels of seed, each bushel containing over 300,000 seeds. He had a habit of leaving a crude fence around a new plantings to protect the seedlings he planted. Hard cider’s taste is rapidly becoming an alternative to beer and spirits today. Today’s major producers are France, Spain, Germany and Britain. Major brewing centers in the U.S. for “hard” cider are Oregon and New England, especially Vermont. This hard cider is packaged in champagne-type bottles, corked like wine, in kegs like beer, in six-packs and served on tap in pubs. Production methods range from Medieval/Victorian to State-of-the-Art. The U.K.’s Hereford Cider Museum released over 250 bottles of 12-year-old, cask-strength cider brandy for Queen Elizabeth II’s recent Golden Jubilee. Cider confusion comes from cider preferences in different countries. In the U.S., “cider” may mean either fresh juice or fermented juice, so it becomes necessary to ad a qualifying word, “sweet” cider for unfermented and “hard” cider for fermented apple juice. In England, for example, you press apples to get "apple juice", and you ferment juice to get "cider". In Spain, you press apples to get "jugo de manzana", and you ferment that juice to get "sidra". In England, all “cider” is alcoholic. Juices from apples
defined:
Cider apples are distinctively bitter, and the bitterness comes from tannin which gives the cider a more balanced taste. Bottom line for any hard cider production is: It takes good fruit to make a good cider. The brand name, Calvados, is a dry apple brandy made in Calvados, a section in the Normandy region of northern France. It's often used for cooking, particularly in chicken, pork and veal dishes. It is a potent brandy made from apple cider and ranging in strength from 80 to 100 proof. In the United States, apple brandy, or applejack must spend a minimum of 2 years in wooden casks before being bottled. Serving suggestions:
RECIPE: (Recipe courtesy Chef Dan
Cummings, Wall, New Jersey)
© Marty Martindale, 2002, Largo FL
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