At once conjuring the crunch of leaves and the smell of woodsmoke, apple cider is America`s traditional toast to the harvest. Whether cloudy, sweet and fresh from the press or naturally fermented to a punchy hardness, cider remains the taste of autumn.
”When I was a little boy, my big pleasure every autumn was to go to the house of friends of ours in the Appalachian Mountains,” recalls one wistful North Carolinan now living in the concrete canyons of Manhattan. ”We`d all pick apples. There was a cider press there and they would make cider. It was so crisp. It was the taste of fall to me and still is. It`s one of those little Proustian sense stimuli that really open the floodgates of memory.”
While a madeleine cookie evoked remembrance of things past for Marcel Proust, apple cider sparks the earliest autumn memories of a nation. Cider-making began here with the Pilgrims, who brought apple seeds and cuttings with them from England, where cider-making was introduced by the French after the Norman Conquest in 1066.
In fact, from the time of the Pilgrims` arrival in Massachusetts in 1620 until the mid-19th Century, cider was a standard American table drink all year round, for all ages, according to Jack Larkin, chief historian at Old Sturbridge Village, a re-creation of a rural New England village as it was in the 1830s. Located in Sturbridge, Mass., the village has a historical orchard and cider press.
Old inventories and records indicate some farmers laid in as much as 30 barrels of cider during the September through November pressing season to see their families through until the next apple harvest time. Without preservatives and refrigeration, sweet cider will keep its unfermented sweetness, color and flavor for only a few days.
In a matter of weeks, the natural yeasts carried on the apple skins will cause it to start fermenting, or ”go hard.” Eventually, depending on the apples used and the temperature at which it is kept, hard cider will have an alcohol content of between 4 and 7 percent. Thus, except for a few autumn weeks, when the sweet cider was still fresh, early American families were drinking a lightly alcoholic beverage for most of the year.
”You know `vin ordinaire` in France. That`s really what hard cider was for Americans, a table drink,” says Larkin. As delightful a drink as it is, hard cider has not been without its hard times. The temperance movement in the early to mid-19th Century provided perhaps the worst of them. ”At that time, a lot of orchards were cut down because of cider,” says Larkin.
Another change in the pattern of American cider consumption came through technology. Until the mid-19th Century, hard cider was the only fruit beverage in plentiful, year-round supply. The development and proliferation of canning, pasteurization, refrigeration and freezing processes changed that. With refrigeration, fresh sweet cider can be kept for up to two weeks. Cider frozen in a plastic container, leaving room at the top for expansion, will retain its character for up to a year and pasteurized cider will keep almost indefinitely without fermenting.
These methods not only extended the shelf life of fresh sweet cider, but promoted the year-round availability of other fruit juices as well. Further, technology resulted in the emergence of apple juice, a pasteurized, more finely clarified version of fresh sweet cider.
Yet another type of cider is called ”sparkling.” Although there is a carbonated non-alcoholic version of this, true natural sparkling cider is a hard cider that gets its sparkle from the carbon dioxide produced by natural yeasts and trapped by a bottling process at a precise moment of fermentation. Often with sugar added, sparkling hard cider has a slightly higher alcoholic content, close to 10 percent.
Nonetheless, hard, soft or sparkling, cider remains primarily an autumn drink in the U.S. these days. Since most of it is made by small producers and sold at roadside stands, few figures are kept on cider production or consumption, according to Larry Davenport, executive vice president of the Processed Apple Institute.
Still, the art of cider-making goes on and cider presses from Washington State to Michigan and New York went into action again in early September.
”When you`re making apple cider, there`s one golden rule: A blend is best,” says Mark McLellan, associate professor of food science and technology at Cornell University. An expert in fruit and vegetable processing, stationed at the New York State Agricultural Experiment Station in Geneva, N.Y., McLellan experiments with new blends of cider based on the new types, or cultivars, of apples the station is constantly developing.
While certain apples have the qualities most desirable for slicing or for sauce, he says, when it comes to cider, ”the needs become the most complex because you`re looking for a nice fruitiness but also some acidity to give some punch to the juice. It must not be overly dark or overly light and you want large amounts of sugar in it.”
No one variety of apple has all the qualities needed for a fine cider. Thus the rule of thumb that a blend is best. In fact, a blend of three or more varieties may be better than just two. For instance, the McIntosh is excellent for its sugar, flavor and aroma and yet its acidity leaves something to be desired. Blending it with a Northern Spy or Winesap might give it the bite it needs.
”The big concern of a cidermaker should be whether it leans too much one way or the other,” he says of the balance of sweet and tart. Some experts suggest a ratio of one-third sweet apples to two-thirds tart, but, says McLellan, ”That`s really where the art comes in. Each cidermaker will have his own favorite combinations.”
Cider lovers also have their own favorite ways of taking cider beyond its traditional role as a drink. For example, fish can be poached in cider. Cider may be substituted for liquid in muffin and pancake batter or thickened with cornstarch and spiked with lemon juice as a hot syrup for french toast. When mixed with sour cream and herbs, cider can make a dip for crudites or an apple-flavored dressing when blended with mayonaisse. Heated, with cloves, twists of lemon peel and cinnamon sticks, cider is a warming winter drink. Chilled, mixed with strong tea and garnished with mint, it becomes a refreshing summer cooler. Frozen on sticks, it makes a healthy ice pop.
But somehow, cider always seems to taste best ice-cold, just after you`ve raked the leaves.
