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It isn’t autumn without ‘em
September 22, 2004
The falling leaves drift by my window
The autumn leaves of red and gold
Johnny
Mercer
Sometime tomorrow,
if I don’t do it first, my sister will call me and ask what I did today. Only she won’t have to wait for an
answer. She already will know that I’ve
hung the Indian corn and autumn leaves (fake, for me, unfortunately) on the
front door.
Why do I do it?
How will she know?
Because today,
just about a half hour after noon, we will mark the Autumnal Equinox, the day
of equal light and dark.
That makes it the first day of fall, and on
the first day of fall our mother always hung Indian corn and autumn leaves on
the front door. She didn’t stop
there. She stacked pumpkins across the
front steps and replaced the red geranium in the unsteady black iron bean pot
by the back door with a yellow chrysanthemum.
Only then did she go into the house to make apple crisp.
We may still be
experiencing hot South Georgia, but it’s fall. Soon we’ll see cooler days, along with pumpkins,
those traditional harbingers of harvest appearing by the First Methodist
Church, and on the Square
over in Blakely. Those of us who live
close enough (if we aren’t in the stadium ourselves) will hear the roar of the
crowd and the boom of the band as the Bearcats roll to another victory. And, yes, (I hate it) the Halloween costumes
already festoon the racks in the stores.
Definitely, it’s fall.
But you might
wonder, as I have, why
we call it fall when most of the leaves are still tightly
attached to their trees. (That is if you
don’t count falling pine straw!) The
term doesn’t refer to Mr. Mercer’s falling leaves, but rather to the sun. On this Equinox day the sun is directly over
the equator. Tomorrow, and the next day, and the next it will faller lower and lower. Every day until the Winter
Solstice in December. An important day, this change of seasons.
While
Nan and I are hanging our Indian corn and whipping up an apple dessert, the Anasazi Indians over in the Chaco
Canyon in New Mexico
will be gathering to watch the sun pierce the darkness between boulders
casting a “sun dagger” across a carefully drawn spiral on the canyon wall. Meanwhile, deep in the Yucatan
peninsula of Mexico,
a beam of sun will slither serpent-like down the north side of the Chichen Itza pyramid.
Not
only in the New World do folks observe this important moment, many Japanese
will have the day off from work so that they can go to visit and decorate the
graves of their relatives on the national holiday called Ohigan. Across Europe, there are fall festivals in
almost every country—in Poland
it is the feast of greenery. In England
they go all out with Harvest Home celebrations—the last ear of harvested corn
is fashioned into a doll who is serenaded with melody
and feted with dance. In the old days,
and occasionally even yet today, the horse pulling in the last cartful of corn
is garlanded with ropes of flowers. Lucky dobbin! In this time, it’s the day of
many church festivals. In the old times,
celebrations focused on the Green Man and the transformation of the Earth
Mother into the Crone.
My
favorite of the old celebrations, though, happened in the ancient Roman Empire,
when at the Equinox, the citizens feted the Goddess (or possibly wood nymph) Pomona, she of the fruits
and vegetables. Dressed in flowing
robes, she generally wears a crown of fruit and often carries an overflowing
cornucopia dripping with the fruits of the harvest.
Pomona is the patroness of
all fruits and vegetables, but most especially the apple. Maybe that’s why I prefer her—she makes me
think of the first day of fall, the Indian corn and my mother’s apple crisp.
So,
to inaugurate autumn and to honor Pomona
and Dorothy, here are some good apple treats.
Dorothy’s apple crisp
5 apples
2/3 cup light brown sugar
6 tablespoons butter
1 cup oatmeal (any kind)
1/2 cup all-purpose flour
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon ground allspice
(or
substitute apple pie spices)
2 tablespoons apple, orange or
lemon juice (or water)
Lightly butter and flour a 9-inch
square baking pan or equal capacity casserole.
Peel, core and slice the apples and place them in the pan. With an electric mixer or food processor
blend the oatmeal, sugar, flour, salt and spices to a coarse meal. Crumble evenly over the apples and sprinkle
with the juice. Bake for 35 minutes at
375 degrees.
It’s
good with whipped cream (add a little cinnamon) or ice cream. It makes a tasty breakfast too.
You
may want to wait for the first crispy fall gardening day to try this
warmer-upper. It would be good after a
Bearcat victory as well.
Pomona’s spicy apple cider
1 gallon top-quality apple cider
(fresh is especially good)
4 small cinnamon sticks
15 whole cloves
Combine
together in a slow cooker set on high. When the cider is hot, turn the cooker to low. This will be good all day, or evening, until
it is all gone. Which won’t
be long!
I
wish my grandkids were here this fall.
Instead of their great-grandmother’s apple crisp, I’d make them my
favorite.
Classic caramel apples
1 package individually wrapped
caramels (48)
2 tablespoons water
6 small apples, de-stemmed and well-washed
6 frozen dessert sticks
Combine
caramels and water and melt in a double boiler or a microwave on a low
setting. If you use the microwave, check
them often. Meanwhile, place one stick
in the stem-end of each apple. When the
caramels have a runny consistency, dip in the apples until they are completely
covered with caramel. You make need to
stop and reheat. Place the dipped
apples (stick up) on waxed paper and cool until the caramel hardens.
After
all—it isn’t autumn without ‘em!
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Trilla Pando is a member of the Southern Foodways Alliance & the Story Circle Network
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