With chestnuts, walnuts, quinces and especially apples; in the fall it's party time! When October arrives, we gather children and friends to spend a day gleaning apples from the nearby orchards of the Vosges du Nord Regional Nature Park.
Between the villages, at the foot of the forest, behind the great sandstone walls of the cemeteries; with boots and buckets we pick up the fruit on the ground without forgetting to greet the neighboring cows and do somersaults in the grass.
Then, at nightfall, go to the family press two villages away to dump the harvest and directly press it, pasteurize it and then bottle it. This fall tradition allows us to offer and have delicious artisanal apple juice all year round.
At All Saints there are also the last jams of the year. After mirabelle plums, plums, peaches, blackberries, raspberries and currants, it's the turn of quinces and pears. At home the recipe is simple. Whatever the fruit, it is washed, cut, cooked with lemon juice and a third of its weight in sugar, passed through a grinder, annealed just a little then put in pots and stored in the cellar while waiting for the guests and the breakfasts.
