A Gift of Fruit

One of the first things I remember growing up in our family was learning that it was virtuous and healthy to eat lots of fruit. Moms in those days had grown up in the kitchens of their mothers who were born at the beginning of the 20th Century. Then they had all had their Home Economics classes in school. Kitchen skills and culinary knowledge using all the latest insights of science were second nature to them.

So my mother continued the home traditions she had begun with my older brothers. We had balanced meals each day which meant that every time we gathered around the maple drop leaf table for our evening meal there would be a meat entree, a green or yellow vegetable or even two, potatoes or bread, and usually milk to drink. It was a rare meal when there was no dessert. We often had pies, puddings, or fruit for dessert. In the evenings my dad would peel and quarter apples for us.

For snacks we were encouraged to have fruit or nuts. There were always apples about, or raisins, or citrus, or seasonal fruit like peaches and plums, and my own favorite, table grapes. It became a regular habit to accompany my mother to the supermarket on Thursdays. There I would be allowed to pick out the fruit that I wanted for snacking that week. To my way of thinking there was never such a thing as too many grapes. With luck during the week, I would end up eating all of them myself.

With all the women in our family adept in the kitchen, pies were a mainstay at our house, much anticipated and relished. We boys soon had our favorites. My oldest brother liked lemon meringue and peach while my middle brother always wanted cherry pie. I became an enthusiast for cherry, too, but there is no finer pie fruit than black raspberries. No better jelly, either. We really didn’t have orchards growing up. My grandparents had a transparent apple tree and a Wolf River, so we learned to appreciate their considerable gifts to us. One of the last summers before my grandmother passed she taught me how to slice the apples very thin to make a proper apple pie. She made apple jelly that was the most delicate pale pink from the bit of red on the peel of the Wolf River apples. When fruit was available elsewhere, we took advantage of it when we could. About 1960 we were invited to help ourselves to the bounty from a tart cherry tree next door to where my dad worked. That became a family occasion in which my dad and us boys took a ladder and buckets to the treasure spot and picked and picked until we had cleared the tree. We went back several years in a row to pick again. Sometimes people we knew would have a bountiful apple or pear year. These were gifts that were much appreciated by all of us, especially later on when I began to take on some of the cherry pitting duties.

As I grew a little older and began to wander out into the world on my own, it occurred to me that if I became skilled at caring for fruit trees it might be possible to have more fresh fruit in my life and in my pies. Over the course of a few years I acquired some skills in orchard care. I began to prune fruit trees for myself and for others. At first I did this at no charge to gain experience, and then it became a paying proposition.

When I moved to the Upper Peninsula of Michigan in 1998 I started an orchard renovation and pruning business that kept me swinging from the branches, as I liked to say, most of the winter in that area. I learned a lot there, but in my seven moves since then I was not able to see any newly planted orchards to maturity, although I planted several. When I landed in my present spot nine years ago I began to look about for some orchard work and soon found it. Now and then when there is a good fruit year I will have some apples right off the tree to make into pie or to dry for a winter treat.

Last year I began to hold a pruning workshop for those in my area to learn how to improve their orchards and arbors. I looked about for a likely orchard that needed some work, drove up the lane, and asked if they’d be interested. Last year they were. Some delightful people let us come into their orchard to demonstrate good pruning for different fruit trees, berries, and grapes. We picked one of each kind to teach everyone how to approach the task.

With the help of the county extension office, others in the vicinity attended the workshop. One of these was Jim, a farmer who lives on beautiful farm ground near the old National Road in Clay County. He has since become a friend. He invited me over in March this year to work on his impressive but long-neglected orchard. There were apple trees, peaches, pears, and several rogue Bradford pears. I identified the Bradford pears and have seen them all cut down, clearing much space and improving the light available for the other trees. As I was working with him on other trees, Jim drew my attention to several Carmine Jewel bush cherries on one side of his orchard. About six or seven feet tall, they looked nice, but I had no experience with them. They didn’t need much pruning, but we took out a few crossing and rubbing branches and moved on.

Then about three weeks ago I had a call from Jim. Would I be interested in some cherries? Sure, I said. Do you want me to come over to pick them? He told me he would bring some to his card game at the hardware in the tiny town nearby. I went over and picked them up, took them home, and began pitting. Jim, as it turns out, is a fine cherry picker. I soon made short work of them and put them in bags in the freezer to keep until I needed a fine cherry pie on a chilly afternoon, perhaps about Thanksgiving time. A couple of days later I went over to help him with another orchard issue and picked a round myself, enough for two more pies. He refused to let me pay for them.

My pruning interest has brought me new friends and interesting conversations in orchards on sunny days when the wind is sharp. It has also brought me the best of comfort food on snowbound weekends when the pie is still warm from the oven and it speeds the melting of that scoop of vanilla ice cream beside it. When the slice is gone, there is that yummy mix of melted ice cream and the remnants of pie filling that fill a spoon perfectly. All of these things make me smile and remember the days of pruning and picking and speaking of the weather, and of the frost that might still come in April. My experience has been that people with orchards are awfully nice folks.

And now, more than 60 years after my grandmother showed me how, I take special care when making an apple pie to slice the apples as thin as possible, and to be grateful for friends with orchards, and for their gift of fruit.