Edible Blue Ridge Fall 2022

To make 20 gallons of apple butter, as Fern and Glen Heatwole do, it takes about 8 hours of constant stirring. The apple but ter cooks down in a large copper kettle over a fire, and ideally many folks trade on and off the job of watching over the pot. There is a special paddle for this non-stop stirring. It is wooden and usually has some kind of hole in it to encourage easier flow through the apple butter. It also has a long, horizontal handle to allow the stirrer to stand farther away from the heat and steam. A term that I heard more than once while collecting stories and recipes was “snitz.” The word has German origins, though in High land it is so ubiquitous in the language of apple recipes that no one could tell me where it came from. To “snitz” an apple is essentially to peel, core and slice it –– the initial process that turns it into a product ready for apple sauce, apple butter, apple pies, etc. As a noun, a “snitz” or “snit” is simply a slice (about 1/8th) of an apple. On the night before making apple butter,

snitz the apples and put them in the kettle or another large container to begin browning. The next day, mix the snitzed apples with either apple cider that has been reduced by half or applesauce. The ratio should be 1:1 (half reduced cider, half apple snitz). Stir the mixture for eight hours according to the help ful rhyme, “Once around the outside, twice across the middle / That’s how you stir the apple butter kettle.” Add ground cinnamon, allspice and cloves to taste. To sweeten more, add maple syrup or honey to taste. When the apple butter is done, have your assembly line ready for jarring –– you’ll need sterilized jars and lids (boiled or run through the dishwasher), a ladle and a funnel. Scoop apple butter into the jars, leaving a 1/4 to 1/2 inch of headspace, wipe the jar lip and fit with the flat circle of the lid and then the outer ring. Turn upside down so that the contents touch the underside of the lid. Let these lidded jars sit right-side up and undis turbed until sealed (they will pop and the center of the lid will be sucked downward).

Pon Hoss Recipe provided by Glen and Fern Heatwole

In the self-sufficient days of Highland County, every homestead farm produced almost everything its family needed to eat throughout the year. Most families would have kept two to three hogs each year to be butchered on Thanksgiving Day. The meat, lard and other products from these three hogs would last the family through the winter and until the next butchering day. Without excep tion, every person that I talked to mentioned some pork product or memory of the process of raising and butchering hogs. Butchering and processing day was once as common as having turkey on your Thanksgiving table, and every

22 | edible blue ridge fall 2022