RIVER CITY JOURNAL: SEVEN DAYS OF AUTUMN, SWEET APPLE BUTTER

Listen, my readers, and you shall hear of how the Sullivan household became, for seven sweet days in autumn, the apple butter capital of the world.

Wednesday: Jason, our older son, arrives from his home in Boston for his first visit in a year, owing to the fact that he has been in Africa bicycling 5,000 kilometers and hitching rides with military transports and arms smugglers and itinerant, sometimes directionless captains of ocean-going catamarans. The purpose of the visit -- Jason always has a reason -- is to reclaim stored clothing and bedding as well as various items mailed from Africa. There is another reason: He wants another stab at making apple butter using the recipe from his great-grandmother's recipe book.

Actually, the recipe book was put together by the W.S.C.S. of the Methodist church in Sweet Springs, Mo., in 1948, when good cooks still knew how to scald milk. It contains recipes contributed by Jason's grandmother (Swiss Steak) and great-grandmother (Boston Brown Bread) and great-aunts (Dill Pickles and Miracle Whip Cake). This particular copy was a gift to his great-grandmother from his grandmother. Over the years, it was passed down to his grandmother and then to his mother. For nearly a half-century of use, the spiral-bound, green-covered book is in remarkably good shape. Handwritten additions to the cookbook include recipes for Grandma Cookies, Mother's Ice Box Cookies, 7-Up Cake and Golden Carrots.

The apple butter recipe is reviewed in preparation for the six days that lie ahead.

Thursday: Jason drives to see his other grandmother in my favorite hometown in the Ozarks west of here. On the way home, he stops at an orchard to buy apples -- Jonathans, because that's what three generations of forebears have insisted on. Other apples might do, but why risk it? He spies a bushel of Jonathans marked "Fancy" and asks the woman at the cash register what makes them fancy. She replies, without looking up, "They're fancier." That pretty well says it all.

Thursday night the process officially begins with the coring of a gallon of apples (not peeled) that go into a Crock-Pot. This is the modern update of the 1948 recipe which called for the apples to cook on the stove. This is the only variation that has occurred, as far as anyone knows. The cored apples are mixed with enough sugar to send even a healthy person into shock, along with smaller amounts of vinegar and salt. They are -- by edict of the recipe -- to "stand overnight." And so they shall.

Friday: The Crock-Pot is plugged in first thing in the morning. The cooking process will take all day, interrupted by an occasional stirring. As the apples cook, they eventually turn a soft brown and finally transform into a dark brown elixir.

Before the next step, younger son, Brendan, arrives from Salina, Kan. It is the first time the whole family has been together at one time, except for funerals, since 1990, not counting the time a couple of years ago that Jason arrived in the wee hours while Brendan was sleeping and Brendan left early for Kansas while Jason was sleeping so they never saw each other. I don't think we can count that as being together.

The two boys -- they are grown men now, but they will always be boys to someone -- put the cooked apple-sugar-vinegar-salt mixture into a colander and squeezed the dark pulp into a large bowl, leaving the peels behind. The squished apples are returned to the Crock-Pot with a small amount of cinnamon to cook a little longer. Finally, the finished apple butter is ladled into quart Mason jars and topped with melted wax. Batch No. 1 is finished.

But there are all these apples left. So the process begins again.

Saturday: The boys plug in the Crock-Pot and decide to go hiking. For them, hiking is no stroll in the woods. It is an endurance contest that generally results in a few scrapes and bruises. I am too old, I decide, to keep up, and it would be a shame to slow them down. In my age-advantaged wisdom, I have learned to rationalize just about everything. While they are hiking, I promise, I will stir the apples.

That evening, Batch No. 2 is completed, and another round is begun. The boys, while hiking, have come across another bushel of Jonathans -- not fancy this time.

Later, after dinner, slides from Africa provide a diversion from the apple butter, although the smell of cooked apples with a hint of cinnamon hangs heavy in every room.

Sunday: The Crock-Pot is plugged in again, and Brendan leaves to return to Kansas. He takes a quart of fresh apple butter with him. All day, Batch No. 3 simmers, adding to the pungent smell. Jason, meanwhile, has rummaged through the attic to find the things he intends to take back to Boston. They are laid out on the dining room table like some parts-supply storeroom waiting for a production line. Two massive, canvas duffel bags await packing.

Batch No. 3 goes into the last of the dozen Mason jars. There are lots of apples left. The cycle starts anew. We scout for old Miracle Whip jars and a few pint jelly jars that already have given up their apple-butter contents from previous years. The Crock-Pot is full again of cored apples, sugar, vinegar and salt. The raw mixture is tempting, and a sample hints at why apple butter is apple butter. The sugar-coated apples with their traces of vinegar and salt actually taste buttery. We wonder if we need to cook them at all.

Monday: The Crock-Pot steams up for the last of the apples. So far there have been no casualties: no burnt fingers, no cuts, no major spills. The kitchen counter is groaning under the weight of jar after jar of apple butter. What a pretty sight.

Jason stuffs the duffel bags full. Really full. At nightfall, he interrupts the packing to tend to the apple butter -- and cooks dinner as well. He now knows part of the regimen of most women a couple of generations ago who cooked and washed and cleaned and bore babies and still canned fruit and vegetables to last through the winter. Some of you, perhaps, still do a lot of canning, but there are probably a lot more of us who remember the bounty of gardens and orchards from our childhood but prefer modern supermarkets. Grocery stores are fine, except when it comes to apple butter.

The last batch goes into the odd collection of jars. The two bushels of Jonathans have produced about 18 quarts of apple butter. We calculate we have invested about $20 to produce a high-quality product with a retail value of over $100. Not bad.

Tuesday: It is 5 a.m., and Jason has to get to the St. Louis airport in time to drop off the rental car and catch a flight back to Boston. His timing also must allow for getting the two monstrous duffel bags checked in. He will carry a loaded backpack on the plane plus another canvas back with eight quarts of fresh apple butter. In Boston -- he actually lives in Cambridge -- he will amaze his friends and tell them stories of his visit to Missouri. They will consume vast quantities of apple butter. They will, no doubt, all want to visit Missouri sometime -- say around apple season. This time next year, Jason could well be tending a large pot of apples somewhere in Zimbabwe. Africa could stand a batch of Missouri-style apple butter.

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Here is the recipe, straight from the "What's Cookin'" cookbook of the W.S.C.S. of the Methodist church of Sweet Springs, Mo. (1948). Do not tamper with this recipe, but you may want to try the Crock-Pot method of cooking. Just allow the apples to cook for 10 to 12 hours instead of the recommended two hours on the stove top.

Delicious Apple Butter

Mrs. Wm. Sampson

Wash and core 1 gallon of 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.

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(Here are a couple of hints. Two pints is a quart. I don't know why the recipe didn't say that. And 1/8 pt. is 1/4 cup. That's all the help you get. The rest is up to whatever muse it is that makes fine art, great music and apple butter to die for.)

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