The pacific crabapple (malus fusca) is a beautiful, widespread tree – growing abundantly along the pacific northwest coast from northern California to Alaska and into the Yukon. The indigenous people here traditionally gather the fruits in clusters from the trees in late summer, before they have fully ripened and become soft. They are then stored for winter by being submerged under water in bentwood boxes. Because of the inherent acidity of the fruit nothing further is required. No salt brine. No cooking. Ridiculously incredible… Fermentation eventually transforms the hard, extremely sour crabapples into clusters of soft, sweet, tangy effervescent amazingnesses.
I have done this successfully by picking crabapples in September, once they are looking less green and more yellow/red, then putting them in 1 gallon glass jars under (unchlorinated) water. These can then be stashed away in a cool place with a lid on loosely, or some cloth tied around the jar’s mouth to allow more ventilation. After about 2 weeks, depending on the temperature, they start getting soft and good, but it takes several months for them to get into their prime. Stored this way they have stayed good (that is, gotten better) for me until the following spring. A scum sometimes forms on the surface of the water the crabapples are in – this is no problem. Just skim it off. Fermented crabapples are a welcome source of wild, vibrant, living food in the dead of winter - when the land has gone into deep slumber. They require pretty much no preparation for a food that will keep quite a long time!
raw crabapples in a jar of water ready to be put aside for a few months
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September 4, 2009 at 6:35 am
Urban Scout
woah. so going to try this!
September 6, 2009 at 7:29 am
Urban Scout
do you put a weight or something on top to hold the apples all the way under the water?
September 7, 2009 at 12:23 am
goingferal
I don’t – when filling the jar with crabapples, I leave enough space so that when i pour the water over them they are submerged on their own. Or i take some out if i filled it too much and they poke up through the water. No reason one wouldn’t weight them down though, just like with sauerkraut, whatever isn’t submerged and is exposed to oxygen will rot rather then ferment. If you do use a weight, tell me how it works…
September 10, 2009 at 2:06 pm
jhereg
Awesome! I gotta try this!
November 16, 2009 at 2:49 am
Paleophil
Yes, but clearly “wild” people wouldn’t have had glass jars, or jars of any sort. So they must have eaten crab apples in their original, slightly bitter form, yes?
November 17, 2009 at 11:35 pm
goingferal
True, folks here used bentwood boxes instead of jars – i wish i had some to do so as well…
Fermenting the crabapples definetely doesn’t make them ‘sweet’ – they are still very acidic, that’s why they don’t putrefy – ever tried eating them off the tree after a few good frosts, when they are mushy and really ripe? Fermenting is basically a way of having crabapples in that amazing state all winter, an indigenous practice done for thousands of years before jars – and a practical method of storing food.
Don’t knock it till ya try it! Serious – you’d probably love them!
October 15, 2012 at 11:28 pm
Kathleen M.
Sir/Ma’am,
You don’t think they had clay/earthen-ware containers or some version of a root-cellar in the ground?
November 11, 2012 at 11:26 pm
goingferal
Clay fired pottery did not exist on the northwest coast pre-contact. Root cellars weren’t common at all, due to the amount of rain in the region saturating the earth with water in all but the most fantastically well drained sites.
November 16, 2009 at 2:50 am
Paleophil
P.S. I don’t eat any sweets or add any sugars to my foods, so crab apples actually taste rather good to me right off the tree.
November 28, 2009 at 8:03 am
Emily Porter
Have you tried this with other types of crab apples?
November 29, 2009 at 3:49 am
goingferal
No, I harvested a bunch of feral european crabapples this fall but I didn’t think they tasted acidic enough (to preserve themselves), so didn’t try – should have! For a while I’ve been wondering if the whole bobbing for apples thing comes from a tradition of storing apples in water…
I think they have to be really acidic for it to work.
November 18, 2010 at 2:16 pm
Seb
I did fermented green tomatoes for the first time this year. I used pickling salt and for flavor, dill, garlic and hot peppers. But like the crabapples, it was little work and required no appliances or fancy tools other than glass jars to put all the ingredients in.
August 17, 2011 at 3:29 am
allison
interesting! would this work for unripe cultivated apples? since they’re green and sour?
August 18, 2011 at 6:34 pm
goingferal
my guess is that it would for certain varieties, and that is likely where the whole ‘bobbing for apples’ game comes from?
September 17, 2011 at 11:32 am
Grandma
Hi last year we had a wheelbarrow full of apples[windfalls] from our trees- we left them there and it rained really hard and the apples were submerged in water for at least 2 weeks, left outside in garden. When we were harvesting rest of apples to make cider we didn’t have enough- and tried the ones we had abandoned in the wheelbarrow and they were not only fine they made a lot more juice than the others. We are hoping to try this as a way of storing apples this year so we can maximise the juice yield. Trees are really old and we dont know what type the aples are; all eaters tho. Submerged apples were also good to eat; we have tried storing apples in previous years wrapped in paper but this didn’t work at all.
September 18, 2011 at 7:25 pm
goingferal
that is so cool, thanks for sharing!