What to do with apples and grapes from your garden?

[jibrael]

We have got a summer garden this year. There are 3 Grapes and 2 Apples Trees in the Garden which give a lot of fruits.

Now question is what to do with them?

Is there any way of preserving/fermenting their juice without the formation of alcohol?

Or what else could be done with them. Any suggestion?

[Iguana]

Eat them! 

[sabertooth]

Apple cider vinegar

Raisins

[eveheart]

I would say eat them, too, but when you want to store the abundance, drying is an option for both apples and grapes. Vinegars can be made, too. The other non-cooking "experimental" options that come to mind are salting and maybe tsukemono pickling. You can always share with others, which is the true paleolithic way of dealing with seasonal abundance.

[jibrael]

Thanks.
I do have a dehydrator, but I don't think I would be able to dehydrate such a big amount of fruits. I will try to learn how to dehydrate using the energy of sun.
It seems raisin making is a tough job.
Also I have to read about tsukemono pickling


Eveheart:

Women of South Korea live longer than women of any other country. What do they have in their food which make them so healthy? Is it the use of Kimchi type salt pickles?

[TylerDurden]

Koreans are supposed to be the biggest fans of eating raw animal food, especially raw live animals such as sannakji etc.   so maybe that's the reason for increased longevity...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San-nakji

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eating_live_animals

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ikizukuri

Hmm, banned in Germany and Australia, it seems. Sadly, no decent sashimi restaurants in Vienna, and ikizukuri has  0 chance of appearing here.

[eveheart]

Thanks.
I do have a dehydrator, but I don't think I would be able to dehydrate such a big amount of fruits. I will try to learn how to dehydrate using the energy of sun.
It seems raisin making is a tough job.

You don't need a dehydrator; they only speed up the drying, but air circulation and insect control (ike screens) is all you need. I've used heavy thread to string up sliced apples, and you can experiment with how thin or thick you cut the apple. Grapes are small enough to dry without slicing.

Also I have to read about tsukemono pickling

I tried making my own tsukemono crock, but I didn't get a good flavor. When I'm in a Japanese market, I always get some of these pickled vegetables from the tsukemono lady, who has a good flavor going. They have a curious (in a good way) flavor.

Women of South Korea live longer than women of any other country. What do they have in their food which make them so healthy? Is it the use of Kimchi type salt pickles?

I'm not the South Korea expert, but I have good friends who are from South Korea, and my sense is that it's way more than kimchi. The older generation (my peers) have a holistic approach to everything they eat and do. I can see this knowledge getting lost in the younger generation.

I live in an area with a lot of first-generation immigrants. Pretty much every nationality brings some incredible but disappearing food and health practices. I find a lot of raw- and fermented-food ideas in the ethnic markets in my area.

[dariorpl]

A fan will also work for insect control and to speed up the drying process, especially in the beginning when there's a lot of moisture and fruit flies will be attracted to your foods.

I suspect in paleo times, if they dried fruits at all, they would have no way to stop the fruit flies from proliferating, and so they would inevitably lose some of the fruits to them during the drying process. Unless they took turns with a hand fan. They may have even welcomed the fruit flies, as the larva likely turns some of the sugar from the fruits into protein. Even to this day there are some people who intentionally grow fly maggots from meat or cheese to increase nutrient availability, even though they clearly lose some food energy in the process.

Wine and vinegar making are also likely to have been done in paleo times.

All of that said, it's unlikely that most paleo people in most of the world would've had access to massive quantities of fruits, and even if they did, their wild fruits would likely not have been as sweet as ours. They may however have used honey to increase sweetness in order to make wine and vinegar.