Sprigged & Spotted

Category: Folk Traditions

  • What is Apple Butter? Part 2: History, Evolution, & the Making of a Beloved Pantry Staple

    What is Apple Butter? Part 2: History, Evolution, & the Making of a Beloved Pantry Staple

    If you haven’t read What is Apple Butter? Part 1, I recommend you start there.

    In Part 1, we talked about the essence of the substance, what apple butter is and how it is made. Now, it’s time to look into where apple butter came from and how it remains relevant today. No matter where you begin, I welcome you to explore with me the down-home culinary delight that is apple butter.

    History of Apple Butter

    Where Does Apple Butter Originate?

    Like American sunbonnets, the history of apple butter can be challenging to research because of the homespun nature of the product. Families, like my own, have passed down the methods mostly informally from generation to generation. But, with some effort, we can find evidence of the roots of apple butter in humble, tucked-away places.

    (more…)
  • What is Apple Butter? Part 1: Ordinary Abundance & Comfort in a Jar

    What is Apple Butter? Part 1: Ordinary Abundance & Comfort in a Jar

    Apple Butter: My Family’s Beloved Historic Tradition

    I can speak with some authority on the subject of apple butter. I am part of the 5th generation (at minimum) in my family to carry on making the stuff the old fashioned way. My grandfather recorded memories of making apple butter with his grandmother in the 1930’s, and making apple butter the same way our ancestors have made it in centuries past is a prized part of my family’s culture. To me, apple butter is made gallons at a time in a copper kettle (a 2 ft or larger diameter pot) over an open fire using a 19th century style method which was conveyed by word of mouth until it was recorded on paper by my late grandmother in the 1990s.

    (more…)
  • Snarky skincare advice for backwoods women [Mid-19th Century Sunbonnets, Part 1]

    Snarky skincare advice for backwoods women [Mid-19th Century Sunbonnets, Part 1]

    Why did 19th century women wear their sun bonnets, or not?

    Women who don’t wear bonnets…

    • make themselves “as rough and coarse as ever [they] can, by way of being independent.”
    • look– at age 26– “like a runnet* bag that had hung six weeks in the chimney corner”
    • make themselves “too ugly for any use except scaring the crows off the corn”

    …according to a Missouri newspaper column published in 1849.

    * A rennet-bag is the fourth stomach of a ruminant (cow), a traditional natural source of enzymes for making cheese.

    (more…)