Today's guest blogger, Chris Oxley, is not Italian, but is willing eat any Italian dish put
in front him—even the weird stuff from northern Italy. He is a
writer/editor/musician and contributor to the movie news website "Ain't
It Cool News" under the pseudonym "Elston Gunn." His screenplay "Ricky"
was optioned by Indie Genius Productions. Currently, he's in
post-production on homemade documentaries "Preacher Man" and "Spring, 1386"
for Holler Presents, which he co-founded with producing partner Scott
McClanahan.
Earlier this week, in his acceptance speech at the inaugural West Virginia Music Hall of Fame ceremony, musician Bill "Lean On Me" Withers remarked, "I am from West Virginia and I am of West Virginia." The latter part of that statement may mean different things to different West Virginians in terms of each individual's specific traditions, experiences and histories. Nonetheless, we often have a certain amount of ownership in who we are and that in turn allows itself a large degree of pride and self-definition. However, I question my own bona fide Appalachian credentials when I can't wrap my head around "bushel" as a unit of measurement.
I spent the last weekend of October down in Mercer County, WV, at my paternal grandparents' house making apple butter. The Oxleys have been making apple butter off and on for several years. If the pantry shelves are stocked, then we don't worry about it. The effort seems to be more rooted in practicality than tradition, but it's a wonderful chance for everyone to get together, work together and put something good into the world at the end of the day. And it's an idyllic setting as well. I vividly remember being six years old and elderly ladies wearing scarves and bonnets stirring the copper kettle against the backdrop of a large woodpile in the countryside. It's like an archetype of what people think as "country," or the ideal of being "of West Virginia."
But it all starts with the apples. Someone usually has to travel to Virginia, or in this year's case, Pennsylvania, for bags and bags of Winesaps (That degree of West Virginia pride I was talking about earlier may be true, but a good apple is a good apple and the frost in May made for slim pickin's). Bags are opened. Two people are on slicing patrol. The slices are stewed on the stove by someone else. The cooked apples are processed through a hand-operated Victoria strainer. Someone must turn the crank, while someone else scoops out what's removed (which is later thrown onto my grandfather's garden). This makes your applesauce, which will be cooked into applebutter the next day. My grandmother, in her astute role as foreman, makes the rounds to supervise each job in between fixing meals to feed the crew. Jokes are told, football is predicted and stories are remembered/argued.
Saturday morning comes with a quickness. At the crack of dawn a fire is built that can't get too hot or too low. The over-half-century-old copper kettle, complete with its own anecdote about who made it and what was paid for it, has been borrowed from my great uncle. All the containers full of applesauce are put in the kettle and stirred... for eight solid arm-burning hours. Now, I need to backtrack for a moment and say that the original plan was to make apple butter the weekend of October 13 when West Virginia University's football team had the day off. It's hard to tear a Mountaineer fan away from a game for any reason at all, much less stirring a damn pot for eight hours. A 50-foot coaxial cable is purchased. A TV is up and running on the lawn. Mountaineers beat Rutgers 31-3—crisis averted.
Sugar is put into the batch every so often and it doesn't take long before the golden applesauce turns into the color of... well, apple butter. It's a color that epitomizes fall to me. Cinnamon is added before the kettle is taken off the fire and there's usually a debate (one of many, including the fire, how to stir, how much sugar to put in and when to take the kettle off, etc.) of how much should go into the makings. One thing I loved about "Feast of the Seven Fishes" are the the moments where people were arguing about the preparations and the execution of the process. It's great stuff because you recognize there's no venom there. You can come off as tempestuous as you can, but there's so much love and adoration behind it that's it's just simply funny. Same thing goes with any debate I've witnessed while apple butter is being made.
Everyone has to take a turn stirring the pot. It's that pride thing again. A jar of apple butter is much more special when you know exactly what kind of time, work and care went into it rather than what you might pick up in the store. There's a lyric from the song "Canned Goods" by singer/songwriter Greg Brown that goes, "There's peaches on the shelf, potatoes in the bin / Supper ready, everybody come on in / Taste a little of the summer / Grandma put it all in jars." The taste of autumn was put into our apple butter jars. Along with anecdotes, debates and Mountaineer pride by Grandma and her family.
Apple Butter Bars
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
2 1/2 cups quick-cooking oats, uncooked
1 1/2 cups sugar
1 cup butter or margarine, melted
1 1/2 cup apple butter
Combine flour, soda, and salt in a large bowl; add oats and sugars. Stir in butter and mix well. Press 1/2 of the mixture into a greased 13x9x2 baking pan; top with apple butter. Sprinkle with remaining crumb mixture. Bake for 350 degrees for 35 minutes. Cool completely. Cut into bars.
Yields: Approximately 3 dozen
(This is an absolute favorite from Mom's kitchen. Have a few with a warm beverage while watching the next game).
-Chris Oxley
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