Apple Economics in West Virginia by Ruth Paget
Mostly mountainous West Virginia has a plentiful apple supply thanks to the very real Johnny Appleseed (John Chapman) who planted orchards around the state in the 1800s.
The USDA (United States Drug Administration) lists one medium as containing 17% dietary fiber and 14% Vitamin C, making it a tasty and nutritious addition to your diet. When I cook with apples, I halve or eliminate sugar in recipes, because I think apples are already sweet.
The recipes for apples in West Virginia Hometown Cookbook by Sheila Simmons and Kent Whitaker cover the entire gamut of recipes from appetizers to desserts that you can make with apples that will please people of all ages. Simmons and Whitaker begin their apple selections with grilled fruit kebabs with midori-coconut reduction. This is an exotic hors d’oeuvres for the backyard barbecue. Finicky teens might just like grilled apples with dips offered like honey, sour cream and jam, and yogurt and jam.
If you make homemade applesauce and let it cook down several hours you, you will get a thick, brown apple “butter” that West Virginians spread on toast or biscuits and use as an ingredient in cakes, quick breads, bars, and pies.
Apples are so plentiful in West Virginia that there are several virus-chasing drinks made with them such as:
-West Virginia Apple Cider Punch
(made with apple cider, orange juice, lemon juice, and sparkling white grape juice or champagne)
-West Virginia Hot Apple Cider Punch
(made with apple cider, allspice, cloves, nutmeg, and cinnamon sticks)
-Golden Delicious Wassail
(made with apple cider, cranberry juice, cinnamon sticks, cloves, nutmeg and ginger to celebrate the harvest originally in medieval England)
Other apple recipes in the cookbook evoke what was once a frontier state like apple cider syrup for pancakes, apple pancakes, and mulligatawny soup. More modern uses of the apple include:
-Molded Waldorf Salad
-Pecan-Stuffed Pork Chops
-Apple Chicken Stir-Fry
West Virginia uses apple butter and apples the most in desserts that beg for a cup of strong coffee to go with them such as:
-apple butter cake
-applesauce cake
-apple butter bars
-West Virginia Butter Cookies
-apple cookies
-candied apples
-caramel chocolate chip apples
-apple butter pumpkin pie
-apple crunch
-apple cinnamon crisps
-baked apples
-apple peach bake
What Simmons and Whitaker do not share in their great cookbook of mountain cuisine is that apples tend to be relatively inexpensive which make them a delicious and nutritious good deal.
Apple lovers will find many good reasons to like West Virginia Hometown Cookbook by Sheila Simmons and Kent Whitaker. There are many delicious Appalachian recipes in this cookbook in addition to the apple ones that make this a nice addition to a kitchen library.
(Note: I still like to think that the big apple tree I climbed in behind my grandma Pennington’s home in Robbins Chapel, Virginia was planted by Johnny Appleseed.)
By Ruth Paget, author of Eating Soup with Chopsticks and Marrying France
