Because September 26 is the birthday of John Chapman, better known as Johnny Appleseed, born in Leominster, Massachusetts in 1774.
The popular image is of Johnny Appleseed spreading apple seeds randomly, everywhere he went. In fact, he planted nurseries rather than orchards, built fences around them to protect them from livestock, left the nurseries in the care of a neighbor who sold trees on shares, and returned every year or two to tend the nursery. Although apples grown from seed are rarely sweet or tasty, apple orchards with sour apples were popular among the settlers because apples were mainly used for producing hard cider and apple jack. In some periods of the settlement of the Midwest, settlers were required by law to plant orchards of apples and pears in order to uphold the right to the claimed land. For these reasons, Johnny Appleseed planted orchards made for popular real estate on the frontier. His first nursery was planted on the bank of Brokenstraw Creek, South of Warren, Pennsylvania. Next, he seems to have moved to Venango County along the shore of French Creek, but many of these nurseries were located in the Mohican area of north-central Ohio. This area included the towns of Mansfield, Lucas, Perrysville, and Loudonville.
Okay, here’s another apple recipe – a really easy one for Apple Crisp.
Heat your oven to 350 degrees
Peel, core and slice 4 apples – medium to large in size.
Jonagolds are good for this recipe.
Place them in an 8″ square glass baking dish
Squeeze half a lemon over the apple slices
In a separate bowl mix 1/2 cup of flour and 1/2 cup of sugar with 1 teaspoon of cinnamon and 1/2 teaspoon of salt
Take a stick (1/2 cup) of unsalted butter and dice it up into about 1/4 inch cubes
Mix the butter into the flour mixture – use your hands to kind of rub the butter into the flour.
Sprinkle the flour-butter mixture over the apple slices and bake for about 30 minutes – or until the apple slices are soft and kind of bubbly and the top begins to get browned.
The history quote is from Wikipedia; the recipe is from my head.
Gunsmoke and Knitting 