Yesterday, Sam Hasek and I harvested a mkak (birch bark basket) full of crab apples from the tree near the Center for Native American Studies here on campus. I boiled them down whole for about an hour and a half last night, and then I strained it through a white t-shirt. What I found when I removed the cloth this morning was a thick syrupy liquid. It tastes very good, a bit tart and a bit sweet. I think it will tatse very good over venison steaks, wild rice, and many other indigenous foods. I think if I boiled it down a bit more, I would be able to seperate the pectin from the juice more, but it tastes so good as it is, I may just leave it. I will put the fiberous materials out for the deer this evening. Next time, I will remove stems and seeds before boiling it down so I can use the fibrous material left over as crab apple sauce. The last thing I did this morning was to mix some maple syrup with the crab apple syrup. Mmmmmm, was that good! The mixture of 2 parts crab apple syrup to 1 part maple syrup was a bit sweet, so for those folks who like it more tart, they may want to start with a 3 to 1 mixture.
