When I was a child, apples were the one food that we could freely, without permission, eat at will.
During the winter and spring months the Apple Man, with his truck full of apples, would stop by on a regular basis. He had bushels of apples in various variety, colour and taste. Each time he would stop by, my parents would purchase a bushel or two, setting them in the corner of the kitchen for cooking and eating.
In the summer and fall months, our own apples trees provided this crispy, crunchy, fresh treat. We had a few russet apple trees beside the house, that gave us a hard, sweet green/brown apple. An apple tree that bore big, sweet, red apples grew at the front of the Kleine Bos (small bush) along side our strawberry field. But the best apple was the large yellow apple that grew in the fence line that separated our property from our nieghbours.
One of my earliest memories, of life in our new home in the country, is of the day that a group of neighborhood ladies stopped by with a big pot of Apple Pandowdy. I can still smell that slightly spicy smell, and taste the sweet delicious taste of creamy, carmelly smoothness. This was the only time I experienced this ever-so-wonderful dessert. That is until this past week when I goggled the infamous dessert and made my own big pot of Apple Pandowdy. It was a yummy treat but didn’t compare to my memories of that wonderful afternoon.
The Apple, also makes an appearance in Scripture, Genesis 3:6-7. “When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and desirable for gaining wisdom,
she took some and ate. She also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it. Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they realized they were naked; so they sewed fig leaves together and made coverings for themselves. “
Is the plentifulness and affordability of this humble fruit a reminder to all who partake in it, of that day in the Garden of Eden and the consequences of that most expensive meal?
Groovy Tales of a Well Adult 