For All the Kiddies in the family.

Like Nina, I make my applebutter in a crockpot. I only have one crockpot, but it is a big one. Last year I got lazy and bought some big jars of applesauce to make my applebutter. If the apples grew in my backyard, I might have felt guilty but they do not, so I do not (feel guilty). The applebutter still tastes better than that stuff from the supermarket.

When I was young, Mom used to borrow a copper kettle from a neighbor to use to cook the applebutter. I remember, when I was about 12 years old, standing in the yard stirring the applebutter with the long handled stirrer. The stirrer looked much like a hoe with the 'hoe' part much longer so it would reach down to the bottom of what looked to me like a huge pot. Mom would put pennies in the bottom of the pot and stirring them around kept the applebutter from scorching. I guess she must have counted the pennies that she put in the bottom and made sure that none of them went into the jars of applebutter...wouldn't want to 'can' one of those pennies. After all, in those days you could but a piece of candy for a penny. One summer she went to the neighbor's house to help her make applebutter. I am thinking that several neighbors gathered there to help peel the apples, cook them down into applesauce and then stir the applebutter until it was cooked down. That was before we built the house on the hill so I was less than 12 years old and I was left in charge of the three younger sisters. Andy was older so he took care of himself. I can remember that Mom was gone most of the day and got home just before suppertime. She was more than a little miffed that she has worked all day helping the neighbor make all that applebutter..I think more than 50 quarts and was not offered even 1 quart for helping. When she borrowed the pot to make her own applebutter not a person came to lend a hand. When we lived 'off the hill' there was a cellar dug into the hill behind the house with a smokehouse over the cellar. Three side of the cellar were underground. Daddy had built shelves on three sides and the floor was dirt with a doorway in the front. Mom would sit in there and peel apples for applesauce or applebutter. It was cool and she would tell stories to entertain us while she peeled. I was the oldest but still not old enough to help with the peeling and she had only a knife...no handy little applepeeler like we have now. To seal the applesauce or applebutter, she would use a water bath...now this was not a pot on the stove but a washtub set up on blocks in the backyard with a fire underneath to keep the water boiling. The tub would hold about 20 quart jars at a time and we would have to keep the fire going until the time was up. There were several acres of property along with the little house that we rented and several fruit trees on the property. Mom canned all summer long...either from her garden or from fruit and berries that came from that little farm. Sometimes Andy and I picked berries and sometimes I watched the munchkins so Mom and Andy would pick. She canned over 80 quarts of blackberries one year. I only picked those blackberries near the house...I wasn't allowed to pick in the big patches on the hill because of the blacksnakes that inhabited them. Your great-grandmother was an amazing person.