Photo courtesy of Western Carolina University Southern Appalachian Digital Collections
To see an enlarged version visit this page and click on photo.
Apples drying in the sun
These photographs were taken by Edgar S. Purdom. Born in 1900, Purdom opened a custom furniture shop in Wayah Valley, near Franklin, NC, in 1946. He was a hobby photographer and made these photographs in Western North Carolina. There are 56 photographs in the series. Purdom retired in 1968 and passed away in Lake County, Florida in 1987.
Time period: 1930s
Southern Appalachian Digital Collections
Back when I first started drying apples I tried drying them outside in the sun on trays much like the woman in the photo. It was a real pain! I had to carry the trays out each morning and then bring them inside at night. I couldn’t hardly keep the flies and yellow jackets off them.
I very quickly decided drying apples in a dehydrator was a whole lot easier and faster too.
Miss Cindy said her grandmother dried apples on a piece of screen she had. I’ve heard other folks say their family dried them on the tin roof of the porch or other building. And I’ve heard a few folks say they were lucky enough to have an attic area to dry apples in which meant they didn’t have to carry them in and out, but could leave them where they lay until they fully dried.
Whatever method you use to dry apples, it certainly is well worth the trouble when it comes time to eat them. We love to eat dried apples out of hand and I love to reconstitute them for use in pies and cakes. The drying process really adds a deep rich flavor to the apples.
Last night’s video: It Took All Summer…but We Finally Grew Zucchini! & I Made a Yummy Chocolate Zucchini Cake!
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I’ve been so looking for your Mac AndCheese . If you could tell
Me how to get this recipe . Thank you in advance .
Claudette-you can find the one I use here: https://blindpigandtheacorn.com/the-best-ever-macaroni-and-cheese/ 🙂
Ma, my paternal grandmother born in 1903 & raised in Crow Creek Alabama, always dried apples & taught me her ways. She had a small orchard and was ate apples (fruit) every day when in season. We ate them in many different forms, fried pies, stewed, apple bread & cakes, raw, and dried after the season passed. We pealed by hand, cored & cut into thin rings. We put them on a screen in the pie parlor just off the kitchen. We called it that because it was screened & like a big ole pie safe you could walk around in. We prepped & prepared everything out there and just down one staircase led to the cellar with the other staircase leading to the main garden. So it was our landing spot for bringing in prepping & puttin up.
I so loved the apples dried just eating them or soaking them & using them for fried pies…we also put up apple sauce & made apple jelly! I miss those days…
Blessings, Allison
Both my grandmother (maternal) and my mother dried apples and vegetables – mainly green beans – in the sun spread out on a framed screen. It looked somewhat like a screen door, but was made specifically for drying foodstuff.
I liked dried peaches a little better, but we could never harvest as many as apples, which we also loved in apple turnovers. My mother and her sisters dried them inside a screened-in porch atop an old white, enameled table. Thanks for those memories and the tutorials.
Tipper, does drying apples in a dehydrator take away any of the nutritional value? Also, I’d say eating dried apples would be a wonderful way to get rid of the weak trembles. 🙂
Regina-not that I’m aware of 🙂 they would be good for the weak trembles!
My mom and dad did this when I was at home. we did so many things the old way. I loved every minute of it. Maybe not always at the time as a child but I have so many memories to look back on and I share them with my Grandson’s.
It looks as though the woman is dressed well for the occasion. Her dress appears to be if a shiny material like satin or organdy. Maybe she’s wearing earrings too?
A lovely photograph.
I remember my family dried apples outside on a large wooden table covered with tin and a bed sheet. The taste of dried apple slices is one that takes me back to my childhood. Better than any candy bar to me and like I have said before, my grandmother made the best apple jacks I’ve ever eaten. What I wouldn’t give for one now. At Christmas, she and granddaddy never had the money for gifts for us grandkids, but the best gifts were her apple jacks and japanese fruit cake.
Praying healing prayers for Granny and safe travels for all of you.
My husband’s grandmother dried apples on a drying frame that consisted of two door sized frames with screen, they were hinged together and they were hung outside from the trees. Worked fine in the hot, dry summers of Wyoming. Here in the mountains of North Idaho we have a bit of hot summer when the humidity isn’t too awful high, but nothing is ripe at that time to dry. So, I basically work my electric dehydrator nonstop this time of year. We had our first snow last night, 2 inches, but my dehydrator is on the veranda busy drying carrots. I have more carrots, celery, potatoes, and apples waiting to be dried.
Wonder how many – or if any – of the trail mixes these days have dried apples? They make good ‘pocket food’ on a hike, as do peanuts and pecans. I think all the different methods mentioned by commenters just go to show how drying can be modified to ones’ circumstances. It isn’t fast but then it isn’t difficult either.
I don’t remember my mom drying anything except green beans. I’ve never dried apples but have ate some that I bought at Farmers market. I guess my mom either froze or canned our apples because that’s what worked best for her. I do the same since I don’t have a dehydrator. I could dry them in the oven but it takes so long to do it that way. It’s good to read about how folks in the past dehydrated their apples and other produce. Who knows when the day May come when we will have to go back to the old ways. Thank you for sharing all the old ways of food preservation. It’s always good information!
I used a 4-tray dehydrator to make venison jerky and dry apples for a few years. Sold the dehydrator and lots of other useful stuff before moving to Florida. We had a 2-day sale, which was a bitter-sweet experience. I kept my Coleman camp stove and 2-mantle lantern, which I knew we’d need in case of a hurricane. We did, and likely will need again.
My Mom Dried apples in the back window of an old Buick. The car smelled so good when I would get in it.
I did that in my husbands truck with kale, needless to say, the smell wasn’t a pleasant one; but the kale was good!
Mom and Mammy dried apples on a bed sheet that was placed on the roof of the can house. If they had a small amount, they dried them on a window screen. Mom cut a can-can one of us girls had years before and spread it over the apples to keep bugs off. My ex-husband’s grandpa had a huge apple orchard he planted in the 50s. We went back to the old home place a few years ago and visited his 80-year-old aunt next door as she peeled apples on her lap, we looked at the top of the trees through the overgrown fields. Aunt Alma said the trees were still loaded every year, but people were too sorry to do anything with them. I’m praying for Granny every day, praying she will be able to make some fried apple pies and eat as many as she wants.
When I was young we would spread an old beed sheet on the tin top of the chicken coop, spread the apples on it and cover with another sheet. We would have to take them in at night and put them back the next morning due to the heavy dews. The apple Jack’s were worth it.
Hello Tipper . Thank you so much for this lovely article! It generated also very interesting comments which I greatly enjoyed.
I’m pretty new to you so I don’t know if you’ve already featured this in your YT videos, but I would love to know more about “fried pies”.
Healing prayers to Granny. I hope she gets great relief!
How long before the new baby arrives? I can already see you and Matt cuddling that precious boy.
Caye-So glad you enjoyed it!! You can see a video about fried pies here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9MrZEu8fAmk&t=327s Thank you for the prayers! The baby will be here in March 🙂
I enjoyed the old photo this morning. People of yesteryear dried many things and it’s good to know it’s much simpler with a dehydrator machine. I am not surprised fried apples take on a real sweetness and taste that makes for dandy eating right out of hand or soaking for use in pies, baking, etc. I may have to try it sometime. I’m familiar with attic drying mostly cause there was no in and out and no bugs up there. We never did it, but my tobacco friends in Starr, SC dried lots of produce that way. Thanks, Tipper, for all the dandy ideas! Prayers for granny and all the Wilson and Pressley clan as we await the newest member of your wonderful family-I bet it’s a boy btw. Deer Hunter needs a lil buddy. Grandkids are THE GREATEST! Lol
Sadie, what do you know about Starr or Iva, SC.? I live in Greenville county, but only about 30 miles from Starr. Down here in the country we consider that next door.
I meant to add in my reply to Sadie, me and others often joke and say our grandchildren are God’s gift to parents for not killing their children, I know for me and many others, there are no words for describing the love I feel or have for my grandchildren. One texted me early this morning telling me he was coming by to to see me this afternoon, I am so happy I can hardly stand it. By the way, how to do you post those smiley faces, I never have any luck with posting them.
I used to dry apples on the hood of my truck. When little pee ants started getting in them I moved them to the dash. It didn’t take the ants long to find them there too so now I use the dehydrator or oven to dry them. I still use my truck for other things. I guess the sugar in the apples attracts insects.
I feel sorry for my poor old truck. It don’t get to go nowhere much any more.
My mother in law would put them on sheet of tin and put them in the old not running car
My Aunt Marjorie and Uncle Paul used to dry almost everything. He made two large frames as big as a screen door, both sides had metal screening. They would lay the produce on one metal screen and lay the other metal screen on top. They then would c clamp the two together and go lean them on the fence. They raised them off the ground a bit with some cinder blocks. Every few days, they would flip the trays so both the back and the front would get sun exposure. They looked like solar panels that we have everywhere today. They had six or more of these frames drying herbs, vegetables, flowers and fruits all summer long. This was in the Southwestern part of Colorado. They would store the dried bounty in Solitaire Coffee glass jars in the bedroom off their kitchen. I loved being in that room! So colorful! It seemed like hundreds of jars on the shelves!!! Thanks for the great memories!!!
Another memory is from visiting my Aunt Rosalie and Uncle Charlie in Porterville, California. They had an olive ranch and grew olives for a cooperative that then sold them to canneries, mostly Lindsey. Surrounding their ranch was hundreds of acres of fields growing table grapes. After the prime grapes were picked and sent to cold storage for grocery stores to sell, the workers would then cut off all of the smaller grapes and lay the bunches on big pieces of cardboard right in the rows of grape vines. They would leave them be for a week or so and then they wolf get gathered up and taken to a processing plant where they were shaken up to get the dirt off, separated from their stems and put into big hoppers to go to the Post Cereal factory in Oxnard, California. I am sure they were further processed there, but do not know that part of the picture.
Such great memories!! Thanks for stirring them up for me!
Keeping your clan and your mom in my positive thoughts.
My mother, both grands and other apple sliders would use bed sheets to dry the apple slices on usually inside a parked car. When I was growing up n the 60s-70s. As most reading this well know, dashboards and the rear deck areas above the backseat/directly underneath the rear window was VERY large in those days vs. cars that dominate the roads today. I tend to agree with Tipper in that a dehydrator could be easier as might a gas oven ( what I use to dehydrate everything from fruits and vegetables to jerky), but with all that said , I revert back to the post about traits yesterday where someone made the statement of , “make do with what we have”. I suppose that’s what those women, like men, do to make things “work” and get the job finished.
Jeffery, I didn’t say it in my first comment, but mother and grandmother would put their apples on the top/roof of their cars, a 49 and 50 Chevrolet. I was a child of the 50 and 60’s. I don’t remember ants being as big of a problem back then as they are now. I don’t know what kept a gust of wind from catching the tin and blowing them off, come to think of it, I don’t remember many cool gusts of wind during the hot southern summers.
My aunts dried apples on an old screen door a few steps away from the back porch steps so they could rush out and flap their aprons to shoo away flies and birds. The apples came from old apple trees in the backyard. Probably horse apples that another reader mentioned. Good food and good memories
My grandmother also dried apples on a screen and stored them in a pillowcase. That fascinated me as a child! Nowadays I am like you, I like to use my dehydrator. Have you ever sprinkled the slices with cinnamon before drying? They are delicious!
Boy, do I miss my granny’s fried pies Could”t get enough of them when I was growing up !
I’d rather eat an apple dried than fresh. If I eat a fresh one, I slice it and salt the slices a bit. Salt brings out the flavor of apples but drying them concentrates their sugar and, while I love the crisp crunch of a fresh apple, I prefer the slight rubberiness of the dehydrated slices. I don’t dry them til they’re crisp because I’m not storing them. They get eaten pretty quickly.
Enjoyed the photo. I love seeing old photos of people in everyday action.
Yes, the photo made me wonder about flies and ants.
I am blessed this morning to hear the hymn, “Great is Thy Faithfulness” and He reminded me to pray for Granny.
My aunts, Ella Faye and Viola Byers, dried apples and peaches from their trees on Murphy Hwy, Ivy Log. The bulk of them were dried on linen laid on the tin roof of a small out building. A small amount would be dried on linen placed in the rear package tray under the rear window of Ella Fate’s ‘65 Pontiac Tempest. Sure made great fried pies!!!
One summer I and a friend dried apples on big window screens! It was a lot of in and out, but so worth it. Now if I get enough this fall, I will dry the in a dehydrator! They are so good out of hand! I watched your zucchini video last evening and your biscuits to freeze! Both were so good! Thank you for sharing with us! When I watch on my tv, I cannot comment. I wish You Tube would change that, also I was gone for 5 weeks helping take care of my brother and discovered almost all of my subscribed channels were no longer marked as subscribed! So I have been checking all my favorites! I’m praying for all of you as you travel daily to take Granny to chemo and radiation for travel mercies and well being, praying always for the best possible results for Granny, that it will bring much needed shrinking of the mass. I’m praying for God’s mercy and grace to bring her through this hard time. I love you all as family! God bless you and yours❤
My mother and grandmother would dry apples laid on a piece of tin, maybe galvanized roofing tin, placed in the sun. They didn’t know anything about a dehydrator and wouldn’t have been able to afford one anyway. The apples were from apples they called horse apples that were also used for making jelly and apple cobbler pies. After the apples dried they would store them in a white pillow case and put sassafras twigs in with them.Each of their pillow case would be nearly full with the dried apple slices. Their fried apple pies fried in hog lard would make you hurt yourself, you couldn’t eat enough of them to get satisfied. I guess today’s health experts would claim drying them on galvanized tin would kill us but somehow we survived.