Hand pies filled with dried apples that have been stewed soft and spiced, then folded into dough and baked or fried. The mountain way to eat the apple harvest in the dead of winter, when no fresh fruit existed.
Apple-drying — slicing and laying the fruit on screens in the sun or by the stove — was a central preservation task in mountain households. Black Appalachian families dried their orchard's apples by the bushel, and the dried-apple hand pie was both winter sweet and portable food for a day's work.
Drying concentrates the fiber, minerals, and polyphenols of apples — ounce for ounce dried apples carry more fiber and iron than fresh. The pectin supports cholesterol and gut health, and the concentrated fruit sugars meant a little dried apple filling went a long way. As a preserved fruit, dried apples kept mountain families in fruit nutrition straight through to spring.
Stew dried apples in a little water until soft and jammy, spice with cinnamon, then seal in rounds of dough and bake or fry until golden. The drying gives the filling a deep, almost figgy intensity fresh apples never reach.
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