RIVER CITY JOURNAL: IF THE FAIR IS HERE, IT MUST BE TIME FOR APPLE BUTTER

I won't even bore you with all the biblical references. We'll just have to rely on a heavenly inspired cookbook.

Younger son's telephone call from San Antonio early Tuesday evening had a sense of urgency. He plans to make apple butter this weekend, and he needed me to fax him the family recipe.

Wednesday morning the fax was on its way. Here is what it said:

September 16, 1998

Bren:

Here is the recipe for "Delicious Apple Butter" from Mrs. Wm. Sampson as it appeared in the "What's Cookin'" cookbook put out by the W.S.C.S. of the Methodist Church in Sweet Springs in 1948. That's 50 years ago this year, if you want to do the math. This is the same cookbook that includes recipes from your great-grandmother, grandmother and assorted great-aunts. As you well know, this cookbook is the culinary bible of our family, and its yellowed pages attest to the endurance of basic good cooking.

From Page 31 of the cookbook, here is the recipe:

Wash and core 1 gallon apples; to them add 2 pints sugar, 1/8 pt. vinegar, 1 1/2 tsp. salt; let stand overnight, then cook 2 hours. Run through colander and add 1 tsp. cinnamon; cook 15 to 20 minutes longer. Put in jars and seal while hot.

That's it. At least I think that's it. Over so many years a well-used cookbook accumulates its share of spills and smears. And my old eyes aren't as good at making out blurred words and numbers as they used to be. So I've had to rely on memory as well as the cookbook. Goodness knows my memory is even less dependable than an old cookbook. In this case, I think we're pretty safe. Of course, nobody today uses recipes that require pints or partial pints of anything, with the possible exception of real cream, which was commonplace in most Missouri homes a half-century ago.

As you know, our family has adapted this wonderful recipe for a Crock Pot, that wonderful invention of slow cooker that let's you put stuff in, turn it on, leave it alone and wait for better-than-expected results. Apple butter in particular is well-suited for a Crock Pot.

In the case of you and your brother, of course, one Crock Pot doesn't even come close. I understand you have invited everyone at work to bring a Crock Pot to work this week. You plan to fill all of them with McIntosh and Jonathan apples, just like we have done in Missouri for a lot longer than 50 years.

Here is the Crock Pot version of the recipe:

Wash, core and quarter a lot of apples (no peeling necessary). Buying apples in large quantities is cost-efficient. You learned that well from your mother and her parents. Fortunately -- or unfortunately, depending on how you look at it -- you learned to spend on frills from me. I am glad to have had some lasting influence in your life. Put enough of the prepared apples in a large mixing bowl -- about the size of a dishpan, except you don't remember dishpans -- to fill one good-sized Crock Pot. Mix the apples well with 4 cups of sugar, 1/4 cup of vinegar and 1 1/2 teaspoon of salt. Put the apples in the Crock Pot. Turn the Crock Pot on high. Let the apples cook until they are dark brown. This may take a few hours. A good way to do this is to turn the apples on when you go to bed. They should be about ready when you get up the next morning. Run the apples through a colander. Add 1 teaspoon of cinnamon. Return the apples to the Crock Pot and cook for another hour or so. Put in jars while hot. In your case, there is no need to seal the jars, because the apple butter -- even in such large quantities -- won't last long. If you want to seal the jars, use the old-fashioned paraffin method. Read the paraffin box for directions.

That's it.

I can tell you that for many, many years, your forebears would never have used one of those newfangled Crock Pots to make apple butter or anything else. That's why God invented gas ranges and turned all the good cooks into Methodists.

Your grandmother was the first to succumb to the luxury of Crock Pot cookery. That happened about the time Rival opened a manufacturing plant in Sweet Springs and started making Crock Pots right there in town, which provided a lot of jobs. A side benefit was that nearly everyone in town purchased a Crock Pot from the factory. These were mostly seconds with some minor, usually undetectable flaw. But the price was right -- next to nothing -- which, you will recall, was your grandfather's favorite price range.

As I told you on the telephone, this is a Missouri recipe for Missouri apples. I'm not sure it will work in Texas, where such a mixture might very well be considered a hazardous material. Check with local authorities on that.

Your older brother -- who understands completely that the apple butter he knows and loves comes not just from a recipe in an old cookbook, but from being in Missouri in the fall with family and using good old Missouri apples that will stew and simmer in our own brand of autumn humidity -- is planning to make his annual pilgrimage to Cape Girardeau for an apple butter-making weekend. It seems to your mother and me that if airplanes fly from Boston to Missouri, surely there is some airline company that would give you a ride from Texas to Missouri. Being a pilot, you would know a lot more about that than I would.

But if you are going to go ahead with your bullheaded (you get that entirely from your mother's side of the family) attempt to make Missouri apple butter in Texas, let me be the first to warn you that it probably won't work. I say this because I don't want you to be too terribly disappointed when your Texas friends have their first taste of real apple butter made the way God intended -- except in the wrong state. God wasn't just messing around when he created chili peppers for Texas and apple butter for Missouri.

Just two more quick items to pass along:

1. Does the date at the top of this note sound familiar? A birthday, perhaps? For a father who takes the time to share treasured family recipes with out-of-state sons even though it may violate some federal commerce regulation about sending such recipes across state lines?

2. Thanks for giving me this week's column. At least I haven't embarrassed you with any stories about things you did as a child. There's always next week's column.

Pop

~R. Joe Sullivan is the editor of the Southeast Missourian.