“We could use the Victorio Strainer machine,” I said to my beloved wife Marsha as we stood looking at a huge bag of apples.
I’m talking about an old-fashioned device that we’ve had for decades. You cut the apples into quarters and heat them so that they soften a bit. Then you dump them into the top of the machine, turn a crank and the applesauce ends up in a bowl, while the seeds and peels fall out at the end.
It is a miracle and came onto the market in 1937 for making spaghetti sauce. As with apples, the tomato seeds, stems and peels are separated and pure, thick tomato juice emerges.
“No,” she said, as she said every year. “I like thick applesauce.”
“I also like chunky applesauce, but I’m not into peeling and coring 10,000 apples.”
“Hmmm,” she said sympathetically. Or maybe she just hums: Don’t sit under the apple tree with anyone but me.
When I think back to the early years of applesauce making, when we peeled each apple by hand and cut out each core with a knife, I thank my lucky stars for my secret weapon.
It’s an old-fashioned thing again. An apple peeler, corer and slicer.
You’ve seen them and probably used them yourself. You put a clean apple on some tines, turn a crank, and the apple is peeled, the core is cleared out, and you end up with nothing but a peeled apple with a hole in it, sliced to look like a Slinky .
It’s a great tool that’s been around since 1864, invented by a smart guy named David Goodell from Antrim, New Hampshire. Still, it’s a lot more work than using the strainer, because you still have to cut off bits of peel from the ends of the Slinky and cut out bits of off-center cores.
“You know,” I said, “the apple peeler was invented long before the Victorio sieve. We live in the past. We have to use the technology from 1937.”
“I like thick applesauce,” she said.
“You already said that,” I said. “100 times.”
Marsha would never say something as rude as, “Tough luck, Big Shooter. Shut up and peel the apples.”
No. She never said that. But I can read her mind.
I stick the apple peeler on the countertop on the suction cup base. I fill the sink with water and throw the first batch of apples in to clean them.
The first apple goes on the teeth and I start to turn.
Damn! I forgot to sharpen the knives. There are two. One peels the apple and the other cores the apple. If the machine is dull, it will be difficult to start and the apples will be mangled.
After removing and cleaning the blades, I take them to my shop for sharpening, walking through the storage room to admire the Victorio strainer collecting dust on the top shelf.
Sigh.
Coarse versus smooth.
Big wins.
The newly sharpened blades do the work. Apple peels and cores fill a bowl, while the sliced apples go one by one onto a cutting board, where Marsha cuts them up and throws them into a large cauldron where they will cook, along with a little sugar and cinnamon. The resulting deliciousness, completely coarse, is packaged in properly labeled freezer containers.
In the coming months we will enjoy the fruits of the trees and our work.
The apple peeling, cutting and coring machine will keep its place on a high shelf in our kitchen, while the poor Victorio sieve continues to collect dust in the basement storage room. Shame. It’s a beautiful machine, but it doesn’t do a rough job.
Oh! Did I already say that? Marsha also likes thick spaghetti sauce.
—Jim Whitehouse lives in Albion.
This article originally appeared in The Daily Telegram: The Great Debate: Fat vs. Smooth
