All things apple, even mom’s recipe

Ever since I was a kid, I have always considered apples the perfect food.

Take crab apples for instance – not only did they possess a delicate balance of sweet and tartness, but you could fit dozens at a time into your pockets without squishing them, and in a pinch, they easily doubled as defensive projectiles when rocks or horse chestnuts were out of season.

Then there were my grandmother’s homemade-spiced crab apples, which managed to taste great, despite looking like clove-studded eyeballs floating in those huge mason jars.

But the piece de resistance was my mom’s apple pie, which to this day has never met its match. Just the memory of it makes those miserly, bland round things that you buy at the store taste like plastic Frisbees.

So when two of my daughters and me went to the 19th annual UBC Apple Festival this past October, I had high expectations.

The first thing that impressed me was the $2 entrance fee, which is a quarter of the regular adult admission. This makes the event affordable for pensioners or families, and judging by the demographics and throngs of happy faces, it works.

Of course, if you wanted to enjoy the apple tasting, that was an extra three-dollars. But when you consider that I was able to sample about 50 different apples (everything from heritage to rare new introductions) in a half-hour, it was great value.

The only annoying part was those few retirees (the kids were actually better behaved) who insisted on butting into line, then stalling everyone with their wine-tasting analogies.

One elderly woman in front of me somehow detected hints of smoked cherry in her apple slice, while the rest of us rolled our eyes and simply waited for her palate to clear.

Then there were the long queues at the candy vendor, not of little kids, but 20-30 somethings trying to decide between caramel apples studded with Smarties, chocolate sprinkles or nuts.

The Food Garden at the UBC Botanical Garden actually has some of the best examples of espalier fruit trees to be found anywhere. It was here that I stumbled upon one enterprising young boy, who after watching an elderly man pick up an apple fallen from one of the many trees, proceeded to shake the life out of the closest specimen. Afterwards, he asked his mother (the same mother who told him not to pick apples off the trees) if he could have the apples that had accidentally fallen down.

We didn’t exactly go home empty-handed either. Of course, the two pieces of apple pie didn’t make it, but the ‘Honeycrisp’ dried apple rings and 25 pounds of fresh apples (including ‘Sinta’, ‘Jonamac’, ‘Topaz’ and ‘Mutsu’ syn. ‘Crispin’) did manage to find their way back to Maple Ridge.

This, along with fond memories of the longest apple peel contest, the fresh-pressed cider demonstration and the impressive display of nearly 200 Malusvarieties made for an eventful day.

As a seasonal reminder for those of you with apple trees at home, be sure to remove fallen leaves to keep fungal scab from over-wintering and cycling back onto the new foliage.

Follow-up with winter pruning (removing dead or diseased wood and improving structure for better air circulation) and two applications of dormant oil and lime sulphur spray applied at least a month apart, and before the leaf or flower buds open. This helps to control fungal spores and over-wintering insect eggs.

Also, with the arrival of the Apple Maggot Fly (Rhagoletis pomonella) to the Lower Mainland, it is important to bag and dispose of any windfall fruit by burying it 30 cm deep or taking it to the landfill.

It appears that I am running out of room to talk about one of my favourite fruits, but since I am feeling in such a generous mood, I am going to leave you with the recipe to my mom’s famous apple pie. Just be sure to treat it with the respect it deserves.

Mike’s Mom’s Apple Pie

• Ingredients – ¾ cup white sugar;

• ¼ cup brown sugar;

• ¼ cup all purpose flour;

• ½ tsp. nutmeg;

• ½ tsp. cinnamon;

• dash of salt;

• dash of ground cloves;

• 6 cups thinly sliced apples;

• 2 tbsp. butter.

Instructions: preheat oven to 425 F; stir sugars, flour and spices together and mix with sliced apples; turn mixture into nine-inch pie crust and dab with butter on top; cover with top crust (solid tops should be pierced for venting); cover with aluminum foil (removing the foil for the last 15 minutes); and bake for 40-50 minutes, or until the juice bubbles through.

Mike Lascelle is a local nursery manager and gardening author

(hebe_acer@hotmail.com).

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