Growing up in Goshen Valley in Northeast Tennessee, my Grammie Yankee had a cluster of June apple trees on her property. Each year we made apple butter using those little June apples. My mother, aunts and Grammie would sit under the trees and peel while the kids were offered the “opportunity” to do the stirring. I will always remember that big copper kettle that hung over an open fire and the cousins standing around taking turns using the paddle oars. Grammie always put a silver dollar in the bottom of the kettle as her mother had done – for good luck to keep it from sticking. It must have worked, because we enjoyed that apple butter year round. We especially enjoyed Grammie’s apple butter stack cakes, with that sweet apple butter oozing through those many layers. As the apple butter was being put into jars, we indulged in little fried apple pies. My mother’s favorite. My mother, aunts and Grammie have since passed on, but nothing can replace those precious memories of cooking up those little June apples!
—Glenda Simpson
I had never heard of June apples until I started writing here on the Blind Pig. I can’t remember which commenter shared the information, but over the years June apples have been mentioned by many folks.
Several years ago when I was teaching a cooking class at JCCFS I realized their orchard had several June apple trees. My assistant for the class, Carolyn Anderson, told me about them. Lucky for us the class was held during the first of July and there were still June apples on the trees for us to use for the class. The variety they have is called Early Harvest.
Here’s a few comments shared by Blind Pig readers over the years about June Apples.
Ed Ammons: My grammaw had a big June Apple tree in her pasture. She forbade us to eat them until after the 4th of July. She couldn’t even see the tree from her house but we respected her orders and the ones that fell off before the 4th were consumed by the cows. Some of the apples did ripen in June but most waited until the middle of July.
Some of the apples had candy in the center. They looked just like the rest but the more you ate the sweeter they got and the harder they got. Near the core the flesh was almost clear and as sweet as sugar. Only a small percentage were “candy apples” and there was no way to predict them. I wonder if anybody else has experienced them.
Ethelene Dyer Jones: Fruit–apples–from early June apples until the last of the fall crop was wrapped by individual apple and stored in a barrel to eat at Christmastime in Choestoe. And then, until they came in again with the June apples we had dried fruit and canned fruit, apple cobbler from sliced canned apples, and fried fruit pies. Bounty, indeed!
Bill Burnett: The favorite apples of my youth were June apples which came off a tree beside Licklog Creek on the edge of my Uncle Pearson Dehart’s place as they ripened first and horse apples from my Grandpa Andy Dehart’s place up on High Lonesome as they turned glassine with sugar when ripe and made the best apple sauce and spiced apple cakes and fried pies I ever tasted.
Kerry in GA: I love June apples. Up until a few years ago I had access to 2 different trees. They make the best apple sauce and my kids loved it when they were babies.
Gary Powell: My favorite apples were the June apples that ripened on the tree beside my Granny’s house. For some reason it grew on about a 45 degree angle before it straightened up, I guess the wind blew it over when it was small. I could get a running start and run up the trunk far enough to reach a limb. If one of the apples fell off the old hens would run as fast as they could to try to beat me to it.
If you have June apple memories I hope you’ll share them!
Last night’s video: Gourmet Meal by the Creek.
Tipper
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