Apple Sauce
Pare and slice some tart apples; stew until tender in a very little water, then reduce to a smooth pulp. Stir in sugar and butter to the taste, a squeeze of lemon juice, and a little nutmeg.--Mrs. S. T.
A short recipe that assumes you know your apples. The whole result depends on which variety you use and how little water you add.
- Apple choice"Tart apples" in this period would have meant a sharp cooking apple — Winesap, or the Newtown Pippin (known in Virginia as the Albemarle Pippin). Granny Smith, Bramley or a russeted heirloom all work; sweet dessert apples like Gala will give a flatter, cloying sauce that needs more lemon.
- Very little waterThis is the hinge. Two or three tablespoons in the bottom of a heavy pan is enough — the apples release their own juice, and any excess has to be boiled off later, which dulls the flavour. Cover the pan and keep the heat low so nothing scorches before the fruit sweats.
- TimingSliced apples over low heat need 15 to 25 minutes to go tender, depending on variety and thickness. Stir once or twice; they should be falling apart before you touch them with a spoon or masher.
- Reduce to a smooth pulpA wooden spoon worked against the side of the pan, or pressing through a sieve or colander, would have served for a fine texture. A potato masher gives a rustic sauce; a food mill or brief blitz with an immersion blender gives the smooth pulp intended here.
- Sugar and butter to tasteStart with about 2 tablespoons sugar and 1 tablespoon butter per pound of apples and adjust. Add sugar only after the fruit is soft — added early it firms the pectin and slows the breakdown.
- Nutmeg"A little" means a few scrapes of whole nutmeg on a grater, not a spoonful of the pre-ground kind, which is much blunter.
- YieldTwo pounds of apples, roughly six medium, gives about 2 cups of sauce — enough for four as a side dish with pork, goose or ham.
- KeepingThe recipe gives no preservation instructions and none should be improvised. Refrigerate and use within four or five days, or freeze.
Apple sauce earned its place beside roast pork and goose long before it became a children's food, and the pairing is old enough that eighteenth-century English cookbooks are often said to treat it as obvious: the acid of a tart apple cuts fat. Housekeeping in Old Virginia (1879) was assembled by Marion Cabell Tyree from contributions by named Virginia housekeepers, which is why so many entries end in initials rather than a byline. Virginia had a particular claim here: the Albemarle Pippin, grown in the Piedmont, was one of the state's celebrated exports in the nineteenth century, and a Virginia cook writing "tart apples" would have had a genuine choice of firm, sharp cooking varieties at hand. The butter is worth noting: many contemporary versions are apple, water and sugar alone, and this one is enriched with butter and lemon.