Fried Apples
Slice apples without peeling; cut and fry some thin slices of breakfast bacon until thoroughly done; remove the slices from the vessel, adding water to the gravy left. Put in apples and fry until done, sweetening to taste.--Mrs. G. B.
A skillet side dish that depends entirely on the bacon fat left behind. The instructions are terse, so a few decisions are left to the cook.
- Apple choiceUnpeeled slices need a firm apple with edible skin — Winesap, Stayman, Jonathan or Granny Smith hold their shape. Soft eating apples collapse into sauce before they brown.
- "Breakfast bacon"The term generally indicated bacon meant for slicing and frying at table, as opposed to the thicker fat middling used to season greens; modern thin-cut bacon is a reasonable stand-in. Four to six slices should give enough fat.
- The waterThe recipe does not say how much. A few tablespoons is enough to loosen the browned bits and start the apples steaming; more than that and they will stew rather than fry.
- Two stages of cookingThe recipe does not specify, but covering the pan while the water is present will soften the slices, after which uncovering lets the liquid cook away and the edges brown.
- SweeteningBrown sugar, sorghum or molasses would all have been at hand, as would white sugar. Adding it near the end reduces the risk of the sugar catching in the hot fat before the apples are tender.
- Heat levelMedium is right. On a high burner the fat will scorch and smoke before the apples have softened through.
- Yield and servingThe recipe gives no quantities. It belongs with breakfast, or with pork or game at dinner, and the fried bacon can be served alongside.
Fried apples are one of the plainest examples of the Southern habit of cooking everything in the fat left from the meat — the same logic that produces greens boiled with a piece of side meat or cornbread baked in a hot greased skillet. Marion Cabell Tyree's Housekeeping in Old Virginia (1878) collected contributions from named Virginia housewives, and the initialled attribution here, "Mrs. G. B.," is typical of the book's method: a network of household cooks submitting what they actually made, with all the assumed knowledge that implies. Apples were among the most reliably storable fruits in a cellar through the winter, and frying them in bacon drippings turned windfalls and keepers into a hot dish at a season when little else was fresh. The instruction to leave the peel on is practical rather than rustic — it holds the slice together in the pan.