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Autumn Alchemy
Cooking
with cider adds a magic to your kitchen that's as old as America
and as friendly as a fall afternoon.
Text and recipes: Greg Patent, Photography: Becky Luigart-Stayner,
Styling: Cindy Manning Barr - Cooking
Light, October 1998
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What I've
always liked about cider is that it gives you the option
of drinking an apple if you don't feel like eating
one. And it's easy to make, as I found out one crisp
autumn afternoon when leaves were changing high up in
the surrounding hills and smoke was curling from cozy
homes' chimneys.
My buddy Larry,
a university researcher and dedicated cidermeister,
was hosting a party devoted not only to drinking the
beverage but to making it as well. We were eager to
take part, and fortunately so, because in no time Larry
put us to work. First, we sorted through the apples
- a mixture of local varieties - to make sure they were
usable. Bruised fruit was OK, but not anything obviously
rotten. And we used only apples that had been picked,
not found on the ground. (Unpasteurized cider such as
Larry's shouldn't be made from windfall apples
because they may contain Acetobacter, a bacterium
used in making vinegar: windfalls or rotten apples may
also develop a toxin called patulin if they've been
on the wet earth or leaves for a few days.)
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Once the apples were
chosen, we cut into a few to make sure they were ripe - you
can tell because the seeds are brown - and washed them all
with a garden hose. My job was then to grind the apples through
a chopper, whose coarse steel blades are housed beneath a
boxlike loading hopper mounted in a free standing wooden frame.
I cranked the handle - it took two hands - while Larry dumped
the fruit into the hopper. A wonderful-smelling mush, or pomace,
plopped steadily into a fine-meshed nylon basket below.
When the basket was
almost full, Larry removed the hopper and brought out a wooden
press, nestling it in place over the basket. He turned the
press handle to extract the juice, and amber-colored cider
began to flow into a plastic bucket beneath the basket. "Here
she comes: first-of-the-season cider," Larry exclaimed.
"Let's give her a try!" The cider was warm from
the sun and tasted both sweet and tangy - summer and fall
at the same time. Maybe that was part of the magic that has
made cider such a long-standing national favorite.
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The
Pilgrims arrived at Plymouth Rock in 1620 with barrels
of cider in their ships, and President John Adams, who
lived to be 91, prided himself on drinking a pitcher every
morning. By the early 1890s, cider was the most popular
drink in America. It hasn't stayed at that pinnacle,
but every fall, you can see the enduring popularity of
the drink in markets and orchards across the country.
But what exactly
is cider? And is it different from apple juice? Good
questions, with lots of different answers. One veteran
cider maker and orchard owner told me if the pressed
juice is left alone and not filtered, then it's
cider. To him, cider means something you can't see
through. A representative for Tree Top Inc., meanwhile,
explained that cider is higher in acidity than juice
and that different varieties of apples are used for
each, depending on the time of year and availability.
Sweet apples such as Red and Golden Delicious normally
go into apple juice, whereas tarter varieties like Rome
Beauty, Granny Smith, Jonathan, and Winesap are used
for making cider.
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Next: More on the difference
between juice and cider, plus recipes!
>>
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