I’ve got an old apple tree in the side yard at the lake. The tree is near the woods so it gets infected with Cedar Spot disease every year, the leaves and fruit get brown spots on them. It doesn’t damage the fruit or the tree just makes for some outwardly ugly apples. I think once they are peeled these are some of the best pie apples I’ve ever tasted. You’ve got to taste fruit even in the grocery store mother would snatch an apple from the bin and bite into it then give me the rest and always ask, “How’s it taste to you.” Then at checkout she’d present the apple core to the checker and pay for our taste. Every fall I put on 10 lbs. eating cobblers, pies, apple empanadas and crisps. The deer start coming around when the apples are still little and green. Sometimes at dusk you can find four to six deer standing on tippy toes picking off the low hung fruit. Last year all the apples dropped in late October. Either they dropped or a neighbor got them or the deer learned to climb or the deer hired a bear to shake the tree. As I result I only gained five pounds.
My mother would buy bushels of good Michigan apples every fall. She made lots of crisps, applesauce and my favorite ‘Pan Fried Apples.’ You could not serve pork at mother’s table without a side of apples. It was an ancient German antidote for trichinosis. All winter, spring and summer it was Musslemans but in the falll it was home made applesauce or fried apples hot from the pan. We kids got to operate the Foley Food Mill when making applesauce and that made the dish extra fun and most tasty. Mother always made applesauce and fried apples with the skins on for added flavor, fiber and nutrition. After passing the apples through the food mill the sauce would be a beautiful rose color.
To make fried apples core nice red apples then cut them into 1/2 inch thick crescents. find a big enough skillet to handle at least 6 cups of sliced apples. Melt three tablespoon of butter in the bottom of the pan then add all the apples, cook over medium high heat until the apples begin to wilt and exude some liquid (five minutes). Stir the apples often but do not break them up. Add a sprinkle of salt (1 t.) and no more than 1 T. of sugar and the juice of one half lemon. Cook til the apples soften and get a nice rosy color (about ten minutes).
Serve with the pork or scoop the warm apples over ice cream for dessert.