Harvested the mystery-apple tree over the last three days!
About 90 pounds of fruit. I have no idea whether that’s great or mediocre as apple trees go, but it’s fabulous for a tree that produced only one apple in the last two years.
I got a fat lip when a rogue apple crashed down on my face. And there are still a few left at the top of the tree or in difficult-to-reach spots. But I’m pretty happy about this.
Now what to do with all this bounty? Some I’ll store in boxes in the basement. Some I’ve promised to friends (furrydoc, how many pounds d’you want?). But … well, that’s a lot of applesauce or dried apples.
Ooooh, wait. Chutney. Yes! My apple-apricot chutney. Aaaaaaand, I just happen to have some California dried apricots left from a recent care package (thank you, AG).
It’s also canned-food sale time:
This time of year lots of grocery stores have case-lot canned-goods sales. Despite the freaking soaring prices, these are are still a pretty good deal.
I regard these once-a-year buys as my first-line food preparedness. Generally I don’t eat a lot of canned or boxed foods, so I keep the cases intact, put them in my emergency closet upstairs, and rotate them once a year.
While they’re mostly foods I don’t eat every day, they’re foods I could eat with little preparation and scant disruption. Even better, they’re comfort foods that I would eat — happily — if the power were out for two weeks or the downstairs was hip-deep in water.
The main courses here are turkey chili (24 cans), mac & cheese (24 boxes), and refried beans (24 cans). The adjuncts are mandarin oranges (24 cans), diced tomatoes with chile peppers (12 cans) and beets (24 cans). (I wouldn’t really recommend beets as the main veggie, but I can’t stand canned peas or green beans, and canned corn — the only other veggie in the local sale — doesn’t really count.)
I figure that’s about 72 very filling meals, probably more for somebody with my “lite” appetite — total cost under $100. So if you’re one of those folks who puts off preparedness because you can’t afford to buy a year’s worth of DeLuxe-Sooper-Duper Freeze-Dried Mormon-Approved $$$ Entrees, think on that.
One person could get by for most of a month on $100. And face it; we’re more likely to have short-duration emergencies (hurricanes, ice storms, power outages) than SHTF zombie attacks.
Of course I also have water, powdered butter, powdered milk, and a cookstove stashed (mac & cheese wouldn’t be worth much without them). Plus dehydrated veggies, eggs, soup bases and so on — bargain priced at the local Walmart. Dog and cat food, too. And don’t forget the can opener!
But those grocery store canned foods, monotonous though they are, are the first line of emergency eatin’.
I think back to the monumental storm that destroyed my yurt and left the whole region dark and cold in 2007. I was too numb to want to eat much for the duration, and all I wanted was something predictable and easy.
Monotony? Bring it on.
And now … when it’s time for monotony to end, there are apples!
Your apples look great! Did you spray for bugs? Locally we had a 95% crop failure for apples due to uncommonly warm weather in March followed by a couple of hard frosts in late April. I still managed to get 4 bushels of Gala seconds from a nearby orchardist so we are well set for dried apples. We’ve butchered 3 deer so far this fall so our freezer has strted looking good also. My friends the beekeepers are having their annual honey sale so we’ll be well stocked with sweet. Don’t overlook honey as a preparedness item. It keeps forever (literally, almost) and can even be used as an antibiotic wound dressing. Try to buy it from a local producer as supermarket honey is always an inferior product by comparison. It’s a nice time of year. Oh, and a five year supply of firewood is a comfort as well.
take a can of those Mandarin oranges and dry them in your food dehydrator, Claire.
They are little Gummy Bears and add a nice chew texture to pack gorp or hot cereal!
I still say the most enjoyable (and federal crime committing) way to deal with 90 lbs. of apples is to turn it into about a gallon and a half of brandy 🙂
I’d say it was a preparedness item, too, but around here it wouldn’t last.
Surplus apples = cider. Even if you just crush them and juice them apple juice can be stored for ages. If you know anyone nearby with pigs they love the pulp.( ironic seeing that pork and applesauce go so well together!) Don’t get me wrong not all apples make great cider. But all apples will make alcoholic cider lol 🙂
After you peel and core the apples for drying, add water and sugar to the peels and cores and some wine yeast. When fermentation is complete strain off or press the juice out and distil. That can be one of your 3 felonies. The easiest way is freeze distillation, if it gets cold enough where you live. Apples make a rather uninspiring wine unless you add something else like spices, or blueberries, or elderberries. Imagination is the key to making apple wine interesting.
My family makes cider from apples. You can dry a few, as well. I had a Goodwill store dehydrator years ago, and would dry apples once in a while. they’re bland, but a little cinnamon brings them back to life. Sounds like you did great all the way around.
Oh my, all the “liquid apple” devotees hereabouts! Who knew?
It might be an interesting experiment, but since I don’t like either brandy or hard cider, or particularly even soft cider, I think I’ll stick with other things. My garage-sale dryer for one.
Woody — The apples probably aren’t as good as they look in the pic. And no, I didn’t spray. That tree has had nothing but neglect. I don’t see much sign of insect damage. Now bird damage … yeah. The pecked-upon apples will be cooked up right away.
Claire, I just got back from town. I lost over 3/4 of my garden to the heat and drought, so I thought I’d pick up some things at the grocery. Wow! They had just about all the canned goods marked down to less than half price. This years addition to the pantry will be store bought, but it wasn’t a total disaster. For a little less than $300, my wife and I can eat normally over the winter.
Arrrgh, Don. Losing so much of your garden after all that WERK! Thank heaven for canned-goods sales, then.
Got curious about the typical yield of an apple tree. If the stats online are even remotely correct (which I’m finding hard to believe), a “normal” yield from a single tree is 20 bushels (weighing 42 pounds each).
That and other Apple Fun Facts here:
http://urbanext.illinois.edu/apples/facts.cfm
If true, my 90 lbs is nothing. But it sure was a pleasant surprise to me — especially from a tree I nearly had torn down because I figured it was useless.
Now I look around my neighborhood and see apples falling to the ground unharvested in several nearby yards.
Both my apple trees had fruit early this year, but by late summer all had disappeared. I didn’t see them lying on the ground, so it is possible that squirrels or some other varmints ate them? *All* of them?
And my plum tree didn’t fruit at all, and hasn’t for a couple of years. Plenty of blossoms and early, tiny fruits, but none survived to maturity. Anyone have any thoughts about that?
Off topic but in case you hadn’t seen the latest in RFID chip usage, check this out: http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2012/10/m-texas_school_district_to_require_students_to_wear_rfid_chip_whil_on_campus.html
20 bushels/tree sounds a little high. According to this chart http://pubs.ext.vt.edu/426/426-841/426-841.html (which I previously found re: info on dwarf apple trees and other fruit), the standard-sized apple tree will yield about 8 bushels.
Claire,
Who cares what “the book” says?
The book says each of my beehives should produce 40+ lbs of honey a year. The beebook writer doesn’t live anywhere near me, I guess, because this year I got about 12 lbs per hive.
With all the variables, I’m just happy for anything they give me, even if its just a fingertip full. Like the surprize of your tree bearing fruit, the surprize of finding ANY honey is enough in itself.
In June, 1980 a dozen or so tornados ripped up Grand Island, Nebraska. We were lucky, minor damage. Three blocks north there was nothing left but basements. We had no electricity or water for ten days, no sewer service for two weeks.
We were the only house on our block with mechanical can openers.
I like canned food for storage; it has its own water. Down here in Texas, particularly in the summer, one of the best portable lunches is a can of fruit.
Wow, that’s a lotta apples you have there! My first thought was I hope you have a clever-easy-to-use peeler/smusher gadget, hehe……and spare “anti ache” meds close by…..
I’d keep the tree if I were you, LOL.
Ref: Yield from a typical tree. “Typical tree” can mean a typical grown-from-a-seed apple tree, or a typical apple orchard tree with grafted-on branches and irrigation system. Big difference.
Leave the juice in a can of peaches and add a good shot of bourbon. Makes what is called a “cowboy cordial”.
Beets??? Beets, Claire? OMFG, BEETS????
As an adjunct to WHAT, I ask with trepidation!
(actually, the juice is ideal for pickling eggs)
I don’t know what part of the northwest you’re in Claire, but just saw this posted on a forum and thought of you(or any readers in that area).
“Now if anyone is living in western Wa. in the ‘Eastside’ area and want some free ripe apples and pears, just drive up to North Bend and the road that goes into town from the west (taking the exit 27) that will put you on SE North Bend Way. Keep on this road, through the round-a-bout at the casino and proceed down the hill a mile or two and then you get into the flat part where it evens out and puts you toward the town of North Bend.
All along both sides of that road is nothing but fruit trees that are just a few feet off the road (King county has about 10 or I think it’s a 15 foot easement from the pavement, meaning it’s county land) and you will find apple, pear, cherry and plum trees. Especially on the north side of the road where you will find a vast field which is the old Tollgate Farm which is owned by King county by the way. That side is just loaded with all different kinds of apples and some pear trees. These trees have been here for years and some will be heirloom types from when the original owners settled the land in the 1800’s.
Right now the apple and pear trees are just Heaving with ripe fruit which goes to waste every year. There is way more than the local bear population can eat, and the blackberries are right there too ready to pick.
Now, if you drive through town and end up on the eastside of town, just keep on it a few miles and go past the sign that say’s ‘to I-90’ which is exit 32, and you will find more fruit trees on the cow pasture side of the road full of apples as well. On the otherside up a few 100 feet you will find the John Wayne trail where there are a few more apple trees and some hazelnut trees ready to pick.
It’s on county land, it’s free and it’s a shame to see it all go to waste. And the blackberries have not been sprayed by the county, there are a ton of them. “
Karen — That’s extremely cool. I’d love to know how you just happened to stumble upon something so Washington specific. North Bend is lovely country (Twin Peaks country — remember that strange old TV show?) and close enough to Seattle that I’ll bet quite a few will be able to head out for an impromptu harvest.
Not me, though. Too far for me …
Hobbit — Whaddaya got against beets? They beat the heck out of canned peas or green beans. And what can I say? They’re on sale.
90lbs from a neglected tree is pretty darn good!
My apple tree is a dwarf Norland, and I average about 225 lbs a year(I’m a hands on, prune regularly, water with compost tea throughout growing season kinda gal)…what do I do with all those apples you ask? I dry tons, because they are great to snack on-I dip them in a lemon juice mixture to deter ugly browning, then sprinkle with cinnamon-and they make a great addition to hot cereals, rice pudding or home made breads.
I juice about 175ish lbs, and can it. Make a few pies, a bit of apple sauce, and before all that, I sort for the best eating ones, and store those for Hubby to take to work-the less fruit I have to buy for him, the more $ I can stash away. 😉
@Karen, gosh, I wish we lived where there was fruit like that on the side of the road! I cannot believe that people would just leave it to go to waste, and not go pick it! It boggles my mind…but then, on a recent trip to Nanaimo, as I picked the blackberries on the side of the road, I was laughed at by a homeless guy who told me “Even us bums won’t eat them fruits!” Me? I thought he was nuts, and told him where I was from, blackberries sold in the supermarket for $9 a lb!
Tahn — Eeeeeeeew!
Tree people — Thanks, I feel somewhat better about my “feeble” yield now. I hit the tree again today and I think in the end I got about 130 pounds of apples — about 20 pounds of which are bird damaged or bruised or broken from falling to the ground. (Those will become applesauce or chutney tomorrow.)
naturegirl — furrydoc has offered use of a corer-peeler. Yeah, I think I’m gonna need that.
LarryA — That would be funny about you having the only functioning can opener on the block if it weren’t so indicative of how unprepared we are to do anything manually. When the power goes out around here, the gas stations stop pumping and the post office stops processing mail — something that would have been unthinkable just a few years ago. Technology — bless it. BUT …
Wolfsong — 225 pounds from a dwarf tree? Wow. That gives me hope. I’m planning to become a lot more “hands on” once the tree gets heavily pruned this winter.
Blackberries … though it’s nuts that even homeless guys won’t eat them, we see the same thing around here. There’s a small, early-season “creeper” type of berry that a lot of people gather for jam. But I’m often the only person I see gathering the later-season berries from the big brambles, which are wildly abundant in the woods and mostly just get eaten by bears.
Claire remember biennial bearing, and you don’t know yet whether this is a bearing year or an off year. Old timers used to wrap apples and tomatoes in newspaper before storing them, back when newspaper ink had lead in it…modern inks are soy based, you should be OK. If one apple gets moldy the newspaper will help confine the spores so the rest aren’t affected. I wash my fruit and winter squash in a mild bleach solution (1T bleach to 1Gal water), rinse and dry, then store. Jackie doesn’t mention doing that, but I get mold by spring if I don’t. Laird, I have 5 plum trees, different varieties, all started out great this year but got hit by heavy wind and freeze/frost while they were blossoming and when the fruit was small. I ended up with one plum. It was good. What is happening to your fruit depends on what kind of plum it is, how old the tree is, what zone you are, where the tree is planted, whether birds are eating the small green fruit, etc. If you can go online and search on your plum variety in your zone you should get piles of information. Most of the time it is weather. Then you have to decide if you want to prune your plum down to a size that you can wrap with Agribon or TuffBell, or build a box around and put a heater and grow lights in it. JK Sort of. And if you have the patience to put fruit socks on your apples (and anything else, including plums, peaches and cherries) you’ll likely find they won’t disappear.
Claire,
It’s like the old preacher said after seeing a woman kissing a cow. “My, my, my, there is just no accounting for taste.”
A cordial is merely a southern term for a liqueur made from fruit. It was a delicacy served after a dinner.
The liquid contents of the can of peaches (mostly sugar, peach juice and water), combined with distilled spirits, duplicates the basic requirements for a cordial recipe, in a basic cowboy way.
Bet you have never actually tried one.
Claire your apples are beautiful, and that’s a good crop – remember biennial bearing, and you don’t know yet whether this is a bearing year or an off year. Old timers used to wrap apples and tomatoes in newspaper before storing them, back when newspaper ink had lead in it…modern inks are soy based, you should be OK. If one apple gets moldy the newspaper will help confine the spores so the rest aren’t affected. I wash my fruit and winter squash in a mild bleach solution (1T bleach to 1Gal water), rinse and dry, then store. Jackie doesn’t mention doing that, but I get mold by March if I don’t. Laird, I have 5 plum trees, different varieties, all started out great this year but got hit by heavy wind and freeze/frost while they were blossoming and when the fruit was small. I ended up with one plum. It was good. What is happening to your fruit depends on what kind of plum it is, how old the tree is, what zone you are, where the tree is planted, whether birds are eating the small green fruit, etc. If you can go online and search on your plum variety in your zone you should get piles of information. Most of the time it is weather or birds. Then you have to decide if you want to prune your plum down to a size that you can wrap top to bottom with Agribon or TuffBell, or build a box around and put a heater and grow lights in it. JK Sort of. And if you have the patience to put fruit socks on your apples (and anything else, including plums, peaches, pears and cherry and small grape clusters) you’ll likely find they won’t disappear. Haven’t met a critter yet that can tolerate a mouth or beak full of nylon mesh and insects can’t get through it. If you tie or staple the sock up over the branch where the fruit is, the sock can also help stabilize the fruit and keep it from detaching in a high wind. What a shame, all that fruit not being saved. Karen, do you all have Second Harvest or Gleaners or some other organization that would pick the fruit and take it to a food bank or homeless shelter? I have three planted blackberry thickets including one of the everbearing Prime Jan and Prime Jim, and you all get blackberries for free!!! How lucky you are!
zelda — Thanks for the generous info, especially the storage tips. I had found some advice (old BHM article) about wrapping the apples in newspaper & was going to work on that. But I did have doubts about what might be in the inks. The washing tip is appreciated, too.
I wondered where I was going to store the apples, then I remembered I have this enormous basement I hardly ever set foot in. It’s dry & cool down there.
I recall you mentioning biennial bearing & was assuming this was the “big” year. Wouldn’t it be terrific if the tree produced twice as much next year?
Damn, that sucks about your plums. Glad the one was tasty.
“Now I look around my neighborhood and see apples falling to the ground unharvested in several nearby yards.”
Ask if the owners would let you pick the fruit. Chances are they would rather you eat it than let it feed the varmints.
Mom and I recently picked about half a bushel of crabapples from the median strip around the corner from the house. This variety of crabapple is as big as the apples in the store, and almost as sweet! There were a ton more, but we didn’t have a ladder handy, and most were out of reach. I’m thinking of asking for one of those harvesting-basket-on-a-stick thingies for christmas.
I’m canning most of them up as pie filling, but I used some fresh to make an apple crumble that came out just fan-d@mn-tastic:
Ingredients for the filling:
1 cup water
1 tablespoon lemon juice
4-6 cups apples (more if desired)
2 tablespoons mollasses
3/4 cup brown sugar (you can adjust this up or down depending on the sweetness of the apples)
2 teaspoons cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon ground cloves
1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
1/2 cup pecans, chopped
Topping:
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/4 cup white sugar
1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla
1 3/4 cup flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/3 cup melted butter
Mix the lemon juice and water. Slice and core the apples. Whether or not to peel them is up to you. Some varieties have peels that soften when cooked, others turn tough and leathery. I leave the peels alone, mainly because I like skipping steps if I can get away with it 🙂
Dunk each apple slice in the lemon mixture and lay them in a greased 9×13 cake pan. When all the apples are sliced, mix the mollasses in with the lemon water, and pour over apples.
Combine brown sugar, spices, and pecans. Sprinkle evenly over the apples.
In a bowl, combine sugars for the topping. Add vanilla and mix well. Combine flour and salt and mix, a little at a time, in with the vanilla/sugar mix until it no longer forms clumps. Sprinkle as evenly as possible over the mixture in the pan. Pour melted butter on top. Bake at 350F for 30 minutes, or until top starts to brown. Enjoy hot or cold.
PS: That recipe is easier than it looks, the part that took the longest was slicing the apples. The trees I got them from aren’t sprayed, and, lets just say there were times I was glad I sliced those apples very, very thin!
Clair: You and I think alike about laying in a supply of canned goods as a basis for emergency supplies.
I particularly like chili and Cambell’s chunky soups. The soups aren’t concentrated so don’t need water added when you are ready to eat. In a pinch both the chili and the chunky soups can be eaten cold right out of the can.
I have never owned an electric can opener. I have several of the manual kind that take the lid off without leaving jagged edges. However as fail safe backups I have about a half dozen John Wayne can openers.
“Claire Says:
October 8th, 2012 Karen I’d love to know how you just happened to stumble upon something so Washington specific.”
A thread on the increasing prices of food at one of my regular forums had the info from a local to the area. She also posted about a town, with directions, that used to be a hazlenut orchard town and the abundance of free nuts. Here’s the link, but I think it might require registration to view;
http://www.timebomb2000.com/vb/showthread.php?414712-Price-Increases-on-Food&p=4587603#post4587603
Claire, If the corer slicer you are borrowing from furrydoc is the type that spiral cuts the apples you may find that the slices are too thin for drying and that they are as thin as paper when dry. Slices about 3/8 of an inch thick seem to be ideal. I’ve modified my slicer/corer to cut thicker but you may find it easier to find a peeler that doesn’t slice and then slice them manually. Antique peelers or reproductions turn up at yard sales if you look for them and coring tools are only a coupe of bucks at kitchen gadget stores. Keep us posted on your culinary adventures.
Yum. Chutney!
I remember it with pleasure, though oddly I don’t remember what we DID with it. Only that it was good.
And put me down as another cider fan. ‘Course, coming from Michigan I was practically raised on the stuff.
I have nothing against beets, except for the awful oppressive conditions beet miners have to work under to obtain them. Oh, and the horrific environmental degradation that occurs when you process the raw beet ore into a finished beet product. The tailings from the beet mines are frequently a sight to see, steaming in the winter snow and staining creeks for miles around a bilious purple color.
Stock up now, though – the American beet mines are almost tapped out and it’s unlikely that other countries (such as Botswana) will be releasing beets from their Strategic Beet Reserves to alleviate worldwide shortages any time soon. Six year olds around the nation will be dancing for joy…
If you are pruning heavily this year mulch the base of the tree with 4 to 6 inches of well rotted horse manure. Once it starts to blossom next year feed it with comfrey tea or nettle tea( are there nettles in the USA here in Wales we have loads) every couple of weeks. The yield should double and the tree will be far healthier as a result.
Hobbit — commie pinko bleeding heart liberal! Don’t you know that without heroic capitalist investment in beet mining, the economies of West Virginia, Wyoming, and Nevada would all collapse, throwing millions onto welfare and into hopeless despair?
Ellendra — That recipe sounds mmmmmmmm. I’ll be watching out for sliceable critters …
Roger — Thanks for the tips. Yep, we’ve got nettles here, for sure. And manure. 🙂
Claire, there simply *is* no greater human despair than having to work in a beet mine. I will wager any amount you care that you have never, ever, been in a a beet mine personally and so I would suggest that before you stand up for the Beet Industry Exploiters that you spend some time with a pick and shovel (and the wombats – the term “wombat in a beet mine” is well understood by all those toiling in beet-infested darkness) there yourself.
😛
Lawhobbit, I have and regularly do, mine beets. My mine is a small non-union operation operating without government sanction or oversight. It’s hard work but the pay is lousy. I usually dump the tailings and processing by-products back into the mine every fall. They will usually seep back into the ground unnoticed by the regulators before the mining season begins in the spring. The beets that I can’t use personally are sold on the black market or bartered for illicit goods and services from the criminal under class. Large scale beet mining might be exploiting others and I’m sure the beet cartel would not be pleased to know that I am surreptitiously engaging in the business but sometimes a guy has to do what a guy has to do despite the dangers. So be careful about painting all of us with your broad brush of scorn.
Claire,
Why has no one mentioned apple butter? It’s just about the best thing ever.
We use this recipe: http://www.pickyourown.org/applebutter.htm You make the apples into applesauce, then into apple butter. It’s incredibly easy.
Our church has three under-appreciated apple trees. Every second year when they produce, the pastor invites people to gather them. We only got (4) 5-gallon buckets this year. I think that’s about 2 bushels; don’t know how many pounds.
We’ve put up (31) 8-oz jars so far, and I think we’ll get at least another 15 jars.
A Victorio Strainer makes the applesauce a snap: http://www.amazon.com/Victorio-VKP250-Model-Strainer-Sauce/dp/B001I7FP54/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1349806249&sr=8-1&keywords=victorio+strainer
I can’t tell you how good the apple butter is.
Weetabix … oh, I love apple butter. Never even thought about making it. Being mostly primal, I no longer eat toast (main excuse for apple butter). But now I’m wondering how it might be as a sauce for pork …
Claire, you might try this recipe from MasterCook (a CD software cookbook). It was listed with BBQ Lamb, but it’s good with pork. I thought of substituting a regular BBQ sauce in place of the chili sauce, but haven’t tried that yet.
Apple Barbecue Sauce
1/2 cup apple juice
1/2 cup finely chopped onion
1 cup chili sauce
1/2 cup unsweetened applesauce
2 Tb packed brown sugar
1 Tb W’shire sauce
1 tsp dry mustard
5 drops red pepper sauce
In 1-quart saucepan, combine apple juice and onion, simmer 2 min. Stir in remaining ingredients. Simmer 10 min, stirring occasionally. Remove from heat.
Woody, I absolutely salute your efforts to undermine (no pun intended) the Beet Exploitation Industry, Inc.! The pay may be lousy, but I’m certain that the hours are long, but that’s all an essential aspect of guerrilla beet mining.
Strike the root! (and toss it back with the tailings)
Claire – if not apple butter (and as part of a sauce for pork it sounds right!), perhaps beet butter? Seein’s how you have all that extra?
“That would be funny about you having the only functioning can opener on the block if it weren’t so indicative of how unprepared we are to do anything manually.”
I suppose there was some humor involved:
Neighbor, “Funny thing, the only can opener we have is electric, and the power’s out. Someone told me you have one of the old crank kind. Mind if we borrow it after you fix supper?”
Me, “You can borrow it right now. We’re going to use up stuff in the refridgerator before we open cans.”
Neighbor, “Thanks! We’ll bring it right back after we…” (long pause, featuring interesting facial expressions) “The stuff in the refridgerator, huh? I guess that might be a good idea.”
Had a random thought: maybe those canned peas would taste better if they were mashed or blended and used to make split pea soup with?
Hm. That’s actually a good idea.
It also makes me wonder how one makes that delicious British/Irish treat “mushy peas.” When I traveled over there long ago, every fish & chips shop had that as a side-dish (a big wad of smushed-together peas that, as I recall, was picked up and eaten by hand). I’ve never seen mushy peas anywhere in the U.S.
Off to Ye Olde Internet …
Nope. Doesn’t seem you can make them out of canned peas:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mushy_peas
I’m probably also mis-remembering about eating them by hand (though I’d swear I had them that way in
WexfordYoughal, Ireland). But boy, they were goooooood.You can make ’em out of frozen peas, though:
http://allrecipes.com/recipe/mushy-peas-i/
And dried peas:
http://www.food.com/recipe/irish-matter-of-fact-peas-mushy-peas-21182
I think that’s the ticket …