214. Apples

It’s that time of year when apples are everywhere around here. They are such an ordinary fruit, that like grass you just kind of forget about them. But I really do love apples. I live just a few miles from Washington where the apple is the state fruit and it’s known as the apple state. Apples are also grown all over Idaho, just as potatoes are grown all over Washington. In fact, this little unincorporated place in Idaho called Mesa in the southwest part of the state had the largest apple orchards in the country during World War II. So, like I said, apples are everywhere around here. You find stray apple trees growing all over because it used to be that everyone had at least one apple tree at their home and didn’t rely on orchardists to provide them with the common fruit. I know many people turn their noses up at things that are “common” but I think overlooking the common instead of appreciating it is a great detriment to ourselves. In reality, nothing on this earth is “common” or we would have definitively discovered it on other nearby or distant planets. Everything about us and our earth is uncommon.

Where do I start about what I love about apples? I like eating a fresh apple at lunch time. I love apple pie, especially a la mode. Apples make great desserts like apple crisp or apple dumplings or apple cake. They’re as easy to come by as a potato, so they are easy to go to for a quick homemade dessert. They make a great snack with popcorn or cheese. You can cook them with a roast, poultry or pork. You can process them into applesauce, adding a little sugar and cinnamon—or not, just process them for a good baby food. Most of us probably started eating apples before we were even aware of it.

Pressing apples into cider is a great autumnal activity and there is no more exotic drink than fresh apple cider. I’ve noticed that people are going back to the hard ciders as well. That’s something we lost here in the US during prohibition and it took us a century to get it back. Hard ciders are kind of like beer and wine in that there are such variable flavors based upon the type of apple and the fermenting processes just as beers vary by their hop varieties and wines by their grapes. It is fun to see the cideries experiment and make new flavors. Something as common as the apple can make such varied and unique ciders. The apple is definitely a versatile fruit.

I also live right near Washington State University, a premier university in research and study of the apple (and viticulture as well), so it’s nice to know that the apple isn’t going out of vogue anytime soon, just as the potato is studied at the nearby University of Idaho. The saying of how you can’t compare apples to oranges doesn’t apply to apples and potatoes around here, at least if you consider how they can be used to drive the economy.

I’ve often wondered what I would do if I fell on hard times and had little to no money to buy food. I think I could get around and do some foraging for apples, fish a bit, find mushrooms and other edible plants here where I live and make it just fine. There’s something wonderful about the plentitude of apples and how they have become not only a part of my daily existence, but also a part of my imagination. Clearly my life would be very different without apples. So, what do you think about them apples?