Apple (1749)

Apples grew well in much of Colonial America. The Swedish botanist Pehr Kalm found apple dumplings a popular dish over much of the English colonies. He visited the old Swedish colony in New Jersey, spent some time in Philadelphia, traveled to upstate New York, living in Albany and noting Dutch-American food customs, and went through Iroquois country to Quebec, noting Indian foods on the way. This kind of boiled remained popular until more accurate ovens encouraged a switch to easier baked dumplings in the 1870s.

“...take an apple and pare it, make a of water, flour, and . Roll it thin and enclose the apple in it. This is then bound in a clean linen cloth, put in a pot and boiled. When it is done it is taken out, placed on table and served. While it is warm, the crust is cut on one side. Thereupon they mix butter and sugar, which is added to the apples and the dish is ready.”

Yield: serves 8 8 small-medium apples (not Macintosh) 2 cups flour, plus more to knead, roll, and flour the pudding cloth 1/4 cup whole wheat flour 2 tablespoons wheat germ 3 sticks butter 1/4 cup sugar or brown sugar

Equipment: food processor, clean old pillowcase or sheet, kitchen string, soup pot, vegetable peeler, bread board and rolling pin.

1. Cut 2 sticks of the butter into small pieces. 2. Mix flour, whole wheat flour, and wheat germ in a mixing bowl. 3. Put half the flour mixture and half the butter into the work bowl of the food processor. (Don't worry too much about measurements.) 4. Process with the steel blade in short bursts until the mixture looks like small kernels of corn. 5. Put 1/2 cup of cold water in a measuring cup. Open the feed tube of the food processor. Turn on the processor, and pour a thin stream of water into the feed tube until the comes together in a ball and rides up on top of the rotating knife. 6. Flour your hands and the board, and knead the ball of pastry for a few minutes, then wrap in a plastic bag and refrigerate. 7. Repeat with the other half of the butter and flour mixture. 8. Peel the apples. 9. Start a large pot of water boiling. 10. Tear the sheet or pillow case into pieces big enough to make a nice purse around one of the apples, or leave it as one large piece. 11. Bring out half the pastry, flour the board and rolling pin, and divide into four pieces. 12. Roll out the largest piece of pastry from the center into a circle big enough to enclose an apple and seal it up. Do that. If you have way too much pastry, roll the next piece out a little thicker. If you don’t have enough pastry to lap the ends and seal, try a smaller apple, or re-roll it thinner. 13. Repeat until all the apples are done. (You can refrigerate the completed apple dumplings. 14. Wet down the cloth or clothes in the hot water. Wring it (them) out, and arrange on the counter-top. 15. If you are using one large cloth, the technique is to flour a circular area a little larger than your circles of dough, and tie one apple dumpling snugly into that area with kitchen string, then flour another area and repeat. So you end up with a cloth and eight bulb shapes coming out of it. If using single clothes, just flour them well, put on an apple dumpling, and tie into a snug purse. 16. Turn up the heat so the water is at a rolling boil, and add the apple dumplings. When pot returns to a boil, you can reduce heat, but keep it boiling well with a cover on top. Boil 45 minutes. 17. Melt the remaining stick of butter with the sugar. 18. When apples are done, cut the strings with a scissors, and unmold the apples into serving bowls. (You can serve the individual ones in the bags.) 19. Cut open the top of the pastry, and pour in a little of the butter-sugar mixture.

Serve for or with meats.