Fall of the year is all about apples in southern Appalachia…well there’s some pumpkins too, but apples play such a huge role in the foodways of Appalachia that I often think of them first.
In fact they are so important that many older folks (Granny and Pap both) simply call them fruit as if apples are the only fruit there is.
I love to can applesauce, apple butter, apple preserves, and apple jelly but I also love to dry apples. The drying process really adds a richness in flavor. We enjoy eating dried apples out of hand for a snack, and also reconstituted for use in cakes and pies.
Another method of preserving apples in days gone by was called bleaching.
Although I use my handy dandy dehydrator to dry my apples, I’ve always been interested in learning more about the way folks in Appalachia bleached (dried) apples by using a sulfur smoking method.
I once read a wonderful clear account of the tradition from John Parris’s These Storied Mountains. The ladies he interviewed for the short piece lived in the Bethel area of Haywood County NC.
On the day he visited, they were having an apple-paring bee. In other words several women had gathered together to enjoy the fellowship of one another as they worked on preserving apples for the coming winter months.
Basically the bleaching or drying technique was:
- Apples were peeled, quartered, sliced and then placed into a basket
- While the apples were being prepared, two ax heads were heating inside the wood stove
- A metal pan was placed in the bottom of a wooden barrel that was sitting outside
- Once the basket was filled, one of the red hot ax heads was placed in the bottom of the barrel in the metal pan
- One teaspoon of sulfur was poured onto the hot ax
- A stick ran through the basket handle and then the basket was hung down inside of the barrel
- Lastly the barrel was covered with a thick piece of cloth.
After about 30 or 40 minutes the apples were considered bleached or dried.
As the apples finished they placed them inside a crock and covered it with cheesecloth. The ladies continued to dry apples and add them to the crock until it was filled. When the crock was completely filled, it was stored in a cool dry place until the apples were needed.
A few statements made by the ladies:
“First off, I want to tell you there is nothing better than bleached apples except ripe apples right off the tree. You can’t tell the difference nine months later.”
“I have bleached apples right up into May every year, and they’re just as fresh and crisp and juicy as when I peeled and quartered them.”
“We dried apples too back then. But when I found out about using sulfur I never dried any more. Bleaching them with sulfur is easier and better.”
When I first read the apple bleaching piece from the book I thought “Well that’s nice, but we’ve come a long way since then and I’m sure sulfur is poison and it’s a wonder those folks lived so long (one lady was in her 90s).”
Soon after I dismissed the idea of using sulfur I read about the health benefits of sulfur being added to dog food. That prompted me to do some Googling around. I quickly discovered sulfur is still used in preserving/drying/bleaching fruit…only today its large companies that are using sulfur not the average home preserver.
Even though the use of sulfur in the dried food industry is FDA approved, there are folks who think it’s dangerous and should be avoided. And there are companies who dry fruit without using sulfur.
I know there are still folks out there who use sulfur to dry their apples each fall and I’ve always wished I could witness the process.
Recently someone shared a video with me that documents the process and even better the event took place just over in Hiwassee GA which is very close to me.
I hope you enjoyed the video as much as I do! And please if you have any experience with bleached apples leave a comment and share it.
Last night’s video: Tearing Out the Beans & Finding Peace in the Woods of Appalachia.
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Fascinating. I’d love to try that myself.
Happy Birthday Katie and Corie.
Add me to the list of never heard of bleached apples. This video was great! This lady and the news reporter were funny!
Happy Birthday, Katie and Corie!!!
This post about apples and mention of Haywood County reminded me of a time in the early ’60s when I worked as an insurance rating agent. We were redoing all the rates in Waynesville and much of the surrounding area including Maggie Valley where I happened to meet Popcorn Sutton. We were both just whippersnappers, but I liked the man right off.
But the recollection was of a place that I recall as Hazelwood that was up the road from Waynesville, sorta southwest if I remember right. There was a pretty good sized apple orchard operation there then. I wonder if it’s still there some 60 years later.
Prayers continue for Granny and everyone.
My step grandma was a tough little mountain woman from Callans, VA. She lived to 102 years old. When she was well into her 90s, my parents drove in from NC and caught her on the roof of her garage working on drying her apples. The garage had a tin roof. She would spread clean muslin/bed sheets on the roof, spread out her peeled, sliced apples and cover them with used clean window screens. She was not supposed to be climbing on that ladder but her fried apple pies cooked in a cast iron skillet with some lard almost excused her indiscretion.
Of it tastes like an apple!
ain’t today the girls birthday? Happy Birthday
Norman-it is. Thank you 🙂
We have a crockpot full of apple slices cooking now for the freezer. This is our second run. We eat then mostly at breakfast but occasionally I will get an apple pie. We have dried them in the past with the dehydrator and on a screen in the Sun. The birds had to be run off often when we used the screen/Sun method but not constantly as when we dried grapes for raisins. We also have a pot of apples and peelings ready for making jelly. I don’t recall seeing anyone use the sulfur method but I know both grandmothers did have a variety of uses for sulfur . One neighbor used sulfur when making molasses.
What a fine video! Instructive and filled with good humor, it taught me something new today. Thank you.
Speaking of apples, your post recalled to my mind the fried apple pies my mother made long ago. “Hand Pies” she called them. And what wonderful treats they were. Sweet and spicy rehydrated dried apples were encased in pastry dough, and were then fried up crisp and brown in bubbling hot lard. We children would eat them – one after another after another – until we could eat no more. And mother would smile.
P.S. How is Granny today? And how are you?
Lesley-we are good 🙂 glad you enjoyed the post!!
I have never heard of bleaching apples, but I found this video very interesting and enjoyable to watch. It’s amazing how folks knew about these methods because it sure seemed a lot easier and quicker than drying them out in the sun like my family did. I love anything made with apples, a hot biscuit with apple butter, applesauce cake, that was one of my favorites my mama made, and my grandmama made the best fried applejacks that I have ever eaten. Even to this day, I still hear about her applejacks. Thank you, Tipper for sharing this video.
As of most on here, I to have never heard of bleached apples. I just made jars of apple butter. It so good especially through the winter time. I remember momma drying apples and using them later for different things. She made one of the best apple stack cakes ever was.
I love everything about the video Tipper! From the sound it makes (that reminds me of the Kraft commercials from the 70s,) the laughter of the elderly lady when he says “what does it taste like“ then taste it, and says it taste like an apple, and she says “well that’s what you wanted isn’t it“ ….then they just laugh! I have not heard of bleaching apples, but I actually used to take a teaspoon of sulfur every day in my water, from a company, called “Live Pure.”
I’ve never heard of bleached apples until now. My mom made apple butter, applesauce and dried apples. I can apple butter and apple juice. I thought about making apple jelly, but no one in my family would eat it but me, so I just can the juice for my granddaughter and mother in-law. The image in my head as I read about the bleaching process was way more difficult than what the video showed. I’m glad you included the video, it was very interesting and the process seems a lot easier than I thought. Thank you for sharing it with us!
Hi Tipper. I have seen my grandmother bleach apples many times when I was young. She did hers in a big crock and threatened us with a beating if we touched the cloth she covered it with. They were so good. I had forgotten this until seeing the video. she used them to make Tennessee Apple Stack Cake or fried pies. such good memories I am 67 yo and they never harmed me.. Thank you
made some apple brandy one time, with my uncle, God has delivered me now Hallelujah Hallelujah
Recently discovered a gentleman growing “appalachian hybrid” apples. He had varieties I had never heard of like “limbertwig.” Of course, I bought one of his saplings and am going to plant it this fall.
People who might think sulphur is bad for you need think about that before eating onions (and their relatives chives and garlic), cabbage (broccoli, and cauliflower), asparagus, shitake mushrooms and truffles (I don’t partake regularly of these) and more. Their distinktive smell is sulphur induced.
Mom and Mammy bleached apples when I was young. I had no interest in the process taking place but I do remember the sulfur smell. The apples I just bought at the grocery store are tasteless and wouldn’t be worth the time it takes to preserve them by any method.
I remember old women taking about bleaching apples but I never saw it done. Aunt Pearl DeHart, from next door, made hominy using wood ashes and soap from hog lard and lye, so bleaching apples wouldn’t have been a stranger to her. I’m not saying she did or didn’t do it, I just don’t remember for sure.
Don’t be apologetic about your parents calling applesauce fruit. It’s just that they spoke a different language than is spoken today. So did my parents and so does me. And so do you! Keep calling it fruit and explaining it if you have to. Outsiders and even our own TV and public school taught kids need to make it their own instead of us hiding it and being ashamed of the people who got us to where we are now.
Going out into the world and learning about other peoples lifestyles, religion and culture needs to be an education not an adoption, unless you like what you see and want to be it. People can come into our world and do the same, we’ll learn ya.
Take it back with you, use what you like and discard the rest but don’t discount the whole experience. They are just people too, trying to get along. And so are we!
Some of this stuff that spews forth from the recesses of my mind may seem foreign to many but I will try to explain if anyone asks.
Papaw and Tipper, about calling applesauce fruit, my doctor told me I needed to eat more fruit so I have started eating a lot off apple, peach and cherry pies! After all he just said to eat more fruit, nothing about what shape or form it was in.
Momma and her family sulphured apples ever year. I never heard tell of them being called bleached apples. They tied theirs in a cloth sack/ bag with a stick through it and placed it across the top of the barrel, then lit the sulphur and covered the barrel. We are getting ready for apple harvest here and I would love to try this. Thanks for the inspiration!
We also use sulphur and Vaseline mixed for wound healing. Sulphur has cured many an ailment.
I love old preservation methods and this is a new one on me. I grew up and still live in a mountain orchard area so I have to learn more! What do you do with the apples once you sulfur smoke them? Where and how do you store them?
Darlene-I’ve read folks stored them in crocks or sacks 🙂
Apples are just so wonderful. They are healthy, delicious—and, mostly, readily available to preserve. I have never heard of bleaching either and my mama never dried them. I think drying is something I would like to try. I always make and can applesauce and freeze slices for apple pies and cakes or fresh applesauce in the winter. I love knowing that the apple trees we have are not sprayed with pesticides. My only problem is squirrels stealing them when they first start growing. They took quite a few this year—the little thieves. Lol.
Very interesting! I never knew about this.
My Grandma must surely have known about bleached apples but she just dried them. I expect the burning produced sulfur dioxide which can often be found as an ingredient in commercial dried fruit. Old fashioned sulfur matches (are they still made?) have that whiff of it. It tends to make me wheezy, maybe because I had asthma when young. I think a variation in the way of doing it would be to put coals in one of those iron smoker boxes grillers use and sprinkle sulfur on that. My brother and I spent quite a few days on the porch at Grandma’s peeling apples, stringing and breaking beans and so on. Good memories. I got some Stayman Winesaps at Carver’s Orchard in Cosby, TN ten days ago. They are early this year. I have only 3 left.
Stayman winesaps are my favorites. Also Arkansas Blacks. Makes my mouth water…
I saw my mother bleach apples many times. She called it Sulverized Fruit. Sure was good!
I have never heard of bleached apples. My grandmother always preserved them in the ways that you have…dried, sauce, jelly, and apple butter. This is a very interesting method of preserving, thanks for sharing with us!
That picture really was worth a few thousand words. Looked much easier than what I was imagining.
It was definitely easier than I expected as well! This was an awesome video! Thank you Tipper!
I never knew of anyone bleaching apples. Mother and grandmother would dry apples from a horse apple tree by peeling and slicing them and then putting them on a piece of galvanized roofing tin and laying the tin out in the hot summertime. The would also make jelly and apple pies from these horse apples. Those fried apples pies fried in a cast iron griddle pan and hog lard grease would make your tongue smack your brains out. The stored their dry apples in white pillow cases and would put sassafras twigs in them I suppose to keep out bugs. Today’s exspurts would say putting them on galvanized tin will kill us. If sulfur is healthy, I will never die after all of those years of working at Michelin and getting sulfur all in my clothes. Sulfur was one of the main additives to raw natural rubber used in their tires. I once caused a disturbance in a store because of my work clothes, someone thought somebody was striking matches until I told the they were smelling me.
In northern (lower) Michigan, apple orchards have been a huge industry for at least 200 years, but I have never heard of bleaching apples. Considering the times, this seems to be an important preservation method and tool for families to consider and learn. Many thanks for this video!
Great video. I am not sure I would try to burn the spent vines, I am not sure it would not compromise the finish on the cattle panels and allow them to rust. I have come across a recipe on Kneady Homesteader using tart apples and blueberries, a Bar B Que sauce to can. Thought you might be interested. Praying for Granny and you guys. God Bless
Oops, those produce markets were in Fancy Gap, VA instead of NC. I seem to have more Oops lately, but it sure won’t stop me from reading and posting on your blog that seems to get better with time.
I had never heard of anybody who bleached apples. Apples were so abundant in my childhood, there seemed not enough time to actually get them put up for winter. Many times I remember my parents inviting random people to pick them free for their own use. Seems hard to believe, but I was foundered on them very young, and I have only in last few years learned to enjoy a raw apple. Mom sometimes canned apples for “fruit”, but also froze many in our huge old freezer. I can’t remember when we got the freezer, but it was so old and scratched up she painted it. 🙂 Appliances back then lasted forever unlike the ones bought today. She baked a delicious applesauce pie. I found an old local cookbook that had the old recipe for applesauce pie, but it just did not taste as Mom’s. Many years later after all their old trees had died out, we enjoyed a scenic day trip to Fancy Gap, NC. They used to have scads of roadside markets where I would get bushels of apples for my parents and an uncle. Maybe I am looking back through rose colored glasses, but seems I remember the time trees did not need spraying, and appliances outlived their owners.
Are you talking about Fancy Gap, Virginia? It’s about 5 or 6 miles north of the North Carolina state line, about 8 or 10 miles NNE of Mt. Airy. There could be a place called Fancy Gap in North Carolina but I don’t know of it.