Butter crazy

A picture I took of a man stirring Apple butter at Roscoe Village (Ohio) in 2014

     Recently I had an experience making apple butter and pumpkin butter. I have been talking about doing it for several years now, but it seems like something always came up and I ended up just buying a jar or someone would give me a jar that they made. Well, this year my mom and I finally got around to doing it ourselves, I have made and canned a lot of things with my mom over the years. We've done everything from our own hot sauce to just canning home grown vegetables. 

    Apple butter and pumpkin butter are both a pretty big thing here in West Virginia, so I thought I'd share with you a little history on it. See, some of the earliest settlers in what is now West Virginia were known as the Pennsylvania Dutch. The Pennsylvania Dutch weren't actually Dutch at all, they were a group of German immigrants (and immigrants from other German speaking countries like Switzerland) who settled in Pennsylvania. So how did they become known as Dutch? I'm glad you asked. That was a mispronunciation of the word "deutsch' which is the German word for German. Some of the "Pennsylvania Dutch" migrated south to the Colony of Virginia on a road that would become known as "the great wagon road", probably in search of the new lands to farm. They settled the town of Mecklenberg or New Mecklenberg in 1762. The town was named after Mecklenberg, Germany but the town was later renamed Shepherdstown. Something I think is interesting is the main street in Shepherdstown is called German Street to this day. The German immigrants brought with them the recipes for apple butter and pumpkin butter, first from Germany to the Colony of Pennsylvania, then to the Colony of Virginia.

    Now back then they cooked it in a big copper kettle over a fire and stirred it with a long wooden spoon, and people still carry on that tradition today. Some of the jars that were given to me in the past that I mentioned earlier were cooked that way. It's a huge tradition in some families. My grandpa was just telling me the other day about how his grandma did it that way (my great great grandma) (she was a Tackett- if you read my post on the Tacketts). I've also been to the Apple butter stirring festival in Ohio, near some of the Amish settlements. By the way, the Amish religion comes from the Pennsylvania Dutch also, their speaking language is still referred to as Pennsylvania Dutch- it's a mixture of German and English.  (that's why they refer to non-Amish people as English- they speak English). I'm getting off the subject again. Anyway, we just did it on the stove but I'm sure it'll still turn into a yearly tradition for us too.

    Some people reading this might not even know what I'm talking about seeing as how apple butter or pumpkin butter aren't enjoyed everywhere. So, I'll do my best to describe them, apple butter is somewhat similar to apple sauce, except that its much thicker. Apple butter is also spiced with spices like cinnamon, nutmeg and cloves. and it is cooked until it turns a rich brown color. The best way I can describe pumpkin butter is it's similar to pumpkin pie filling, only not... if that makes sense. It's cooked down pumpkins, with spices added, most people probably start off with pumpkin puree and not actual pumpkins though. Both smell great when cooking (you might use a crock pot recipe) and taste even better when they're finished, either on a biscuit, on toast, a bagel or just on a spoon! I've also heard of pear butter, which I assume is the same thing as apple butter, except with pears.

    A little bit more history. Apples aren't native to America but luckily for us (and the deer) colonists brought the fruit and seeds from Europe. Another thing- have you ever heard the expression 'American as apple pie'?
  Not sure how that got started but apple pie is def. not American.

    For more on this and other ways Germans influenced our culture, check out my book. Til next time, ---Andrew