In most respects, Fishkill Farms operates like any of the dozens of sustainable family farms that dot New York’s Hudson River Valley. Each morning, a team of workers heads out into the field to plant and prune back weeds, or tend to the farm’s 50 acres of fruit trees. Nearby, chickens busily peck at the grass around their mobile coop, enriching the soil as they go, and laying eggs with yolks like ripe tangerines. Unlike its neighbors, however, Fishkill Farms has an unusual Jewish history — one that, it turns out, is remarkably well suited for the Rosh Hashanah table.

Nearly a century ago, in 1913, 22-year-old Henry Morgenthau Jr. acquired a 1,000-acre apple orchard and dairy farm. Farming was an unusual choice of profession for the only son of a wealthy Jewish businessman and ambassador raised in New York City. But despite his father’s expectation that he join the family real estate company, Morgenthau decided to leave his architectural studies at Cornell University (he would later return to study agriculture) and follow a calling to work the land. Over the next decade and a half, he grew more than 10 different varieties of apples at Fishkill Farms, favoring the tart and tender-fleshed McIntosh above all. He and his wife, Elinor, toiled diligently — organizing canning clubs for the township’s women and even shortening their honeymoon so that they could make it home for spring planting. In 1922, Morgenthau purchased American Agriculturist magazine and split his time among the publication’s offices in New York City, his farm and the printing plant upstate in nearby Poughkeepsie.

Morgenthau would, of course, eventually return to the public sphere — as chairman of the Federal Farm Board and then as the U.S. secretary of the Treasury under his good friend, Franklin Delano Roosevelt. But according to a family history written by Henry Morgenthau III, “Mostly Morgenthaus” (Ticknor & Fields, 1991), his father always identified himself as a farmer above all. And without a doubt, his greatest passion was apples: “He loved nothing better than to ride horseback through the rows of apple trees at all seasons.”

Despite his Bavarian-Jewish heritage, Henry Morgenthau was not a religious man. He would play a key role in the American government’s effort to rescue European Jews during and after World War II, and later worked extensively with Jewish philanthropies and Israeli causes.

Still, his son, Manhattan District Attorney Robert Morgenthau, says that his father never made the explicit connection between his beloved orchards and the Jewish New Year. “My father believed that what you did for people is more important than what you pray,” he said. Regardless, his father certainly understood — perhaps better than most people — how an apple embodies the spirit of autumn and the sense of seasonal flux, which helps give Rosh Hashanah its emotional power.

At the time, Morgenthau’s path away from the Ivy League and toward the farm was certainly regarded as curious, and possibly irresponsible, by wider society. In retrospect, however, he stands as an inspiring predecessor for today’s growing movement of college-educated 20- and 30-somethings who eschew office-based professions in order to grow food — like his grandson, Josh.

Two years ago, Josh Morgenthau — a 25-year old painter and Yale graduate — came to Fishkill Farms to be its full-time manager. Here’s how it happened: Josh’s father, Robert Morgenthau, shares his father’s deep love of Fishkill Farms and, like his father once did, spends nearly every weekend there. Still, he never farmed professionally, so when the farm’s long-term caretaker retired a decade ago, the orchard fell into disrepair. Luckily, Josh, who has fond childhood memories of “making and bottling cider” with his dad, was intrigued by the unique opportunity to paint agricultural landscapes, and agreed to step in and take over the “family business.”

With the help of his girlfriend, Hannah Geller, and a small team of dedicated young farmers, Josh Morgenthau has begun to revitalize Fishkill Farms. Focusing on sustainable growing practices, they cultivate more than 15 different types of apples, including his grandfather’s favorite, McIntosh, and a few heirloom varieties. They also grow pears, cherries, peaches and several other types of fruit; keep a flock of laying chickens, and recently planted a five-acre organic vegetable farm. Fishkill Farms’ produce makes its way to customers via farmers’ markets in Brooklyn and upstate in Beacon, and through the farm’s on-site stand and U-pick operations. Josh Morgenthau said that farm traffic increases dramatically in September and October when the apple harvest — and, not coincidentally, the High Holy Days — are in full swing. “It is such a blur,” he said. “All of a sudden, thousands of people begin cycling through.”

Just two years into his farming career, he represents the next generation in a family deeply committed to both public service and stewardship of the land. Whether he ultimately decides to make farming his life’s work or a stop along the path remains to be seen — but that is ultimately beside the point. “There is something incredibly fulfilling about the work of coaxing food from the earth,” Morgenthau said. “I don’t know if I would call it spiritual, but the connection with forces outside of your control definitely feels very humbling.” Somewhere, a proud grandfather is smiling.

Photos: Fishkill Farms

Reprinted with permission of the Forward

Apples and apple growers are in trouble. At one time, North America had over 14,000 apple varieties populating habitats from coast to coast. But in the 2001 Fruit, Berry and Nut Inventory published by Seed Savers Exchange (Whealy, 2001), the number of apple varieties available to Americans through nursery stocks had dwindled to 1,500. The continued tragedy is that in 2009, only 11 apples comprise 90% of what Americans access and enjoy.

I hadn’t thought closely about apples until this spring when apple experts and advocates from across the United States met in Madison, Wisconsin. Under the leadership of Dr. Gary Nabhan, founder and facilitator of the Renewing America’s Food Traditions (RAFT) alliance, and Jenny Trotter of Slow Food-USA, nearly 20 apple experts assembled for a “Forgotten Fruits Summit” to discuss the alarming decline of apple varieties and identify strategies for maintaining apples in the landscape.

The Summit marked the inaugural summit for RAFT’s Heirloom Apple community. This collection of apple enthusiasts have spent their entire lives grafting, pruning, harvesting, pressing, enjoying and fighting for apples. Their earnest conversations and easy laughter showed how they recognized the importance of enjoying as much as fighting for apple culture. Dialogue freely slipped between debating technical pest management techniques to exchanging culinary tasting notes, underscoring a shared passion and awareness that their work has both ecological and cultural value: to conserve both genetic diversity and food traditions.

Nabhan describes that these apple growers “have all worked so hard in their parts of the country to grow apples and record their names and stories. Each is so intent on rescuing apple history in their neck of the woods, that they never had time to meet each other.”

As the experts went around the room and introduced themselves, it soon became clear that they were not just talking about apples. But, equally, their life stories were being told by apples that they have grown, written about and even brought on the plane to share. So much of who these apple growers are is a reflection of the landscape they come from.

Take Tom Burford from Virginia, who is a self-confessed apple grower, corrupter and educator. He begins his story relating how he “was born under an apple tree on a very hot August day in 1935. My mother and grandmother went to harvest some Smokehouse apples to fry for supper. When my mother arrived at the tree, she said ‘I think I’d better go back to the house,’ and ten minutes later I came into the world. And because my life has since been devoted to apples, I later would kid her, ‘Mother, why couldn’t you just let me be born under the apple tree?’ That would have added a more flavorful tale to my life story. But she replied, ‘Son, it would have been comfortable for you, but not comfortable for me.’”

Burford’s early exposure to apples grew into a lifelong vocation that took a unique turn later in life. He had a production nursery for 40 years, but the growing loss of fruit tree diversity made him realize training new growers was crucial to the apple’s survival.

“My work today is about education. I want to help people discover that they can have a passion for apples.”

Apples have a system for storing and transmitting their genetic information, passing on their traits from generation to generation through seeds. Similarly, cultures create systems for passing on knowledge and tools to a new generation to ensure the vitality and health of their communities. Burford is one of these “cultural pollinators,” sharing his knowledge with young growers to ensure trees and traditions have a future.

“A decade ago, I would never have dreamed that we would be together in this room. That we would be a driving force to help nurture the future of the apple in America,” Burford reflects. And their work couldn’t come at a more critical time.

The core task put before the fruit experts at their summit was this: to discuss the country’s declining apple diversity in order to identify strategies for restoration and raise a new generation to the trade.

Nabhan continues with the shared responsibility of this work, stating that “we all have to re-imagine this apple culture we are talking about… the trouble is a lot of the antique apples are now grown by antique people, and we need to be sure a new generation is brought into the fold. It is just as important for the elders to know their excitement and passion for apples is being heard and wanted by the next generation.”

Following the Forgotten Fruits Summit, RAFT hosted a one-day workshop for beginning apple growers. This hands-on workshop featured classroom instruction and a field trip to local abandoned orchards with instructors Dan Bussey (Wisconsin orchardist and author) and Kanin Routson (University of Arizona). It drew over 40 participants from Wisconsin, Minnesota, Iowa, Illinois, Indiana and Michigan.

Some of the fruit experts were able to participate in this training, sharing their knowledge with the next generation of fruit growers.

Burford speaks that, “propagation itself is the element that defines society. Today, the people who hold power in our society are in technology. In my time, the agriculturalists held the power. We need to understand this, and we need to see a shift… so that agriculturalists and those who care for our land have [greater] representation again. This is why we need to teach people not just where food comes from, but also to empower them to grow it for themselves. Propagation is power. That is why, for me, doing grafting workshops is so important.”

It is our shared traditions and the sense of coming from a place that gives each of us character, identity and flavor. But it also gives our communities character, identity and meaning. We need these traditions and we need to support the next generation of growers who ensure they are not forgotten.

Slow Food-USA has placed 129 varieties on its “Ark of Taste” to raise awareness and encourage interest in these regional and heritage varieties. For more information on the American apple, click here.

Renewing America’s Food Traditions (RAFT) is a national alliance, managed by Slow Food USA, committed to restoring America’s agricultural biodiversity and developing a public understanding of place-based foods. For the past five years, the RAFT alliance has been bringing food producers, chefs and consumers together to develop and promote conservation strategies, sustainable food production, and awareness of our country’s unique and endangered foods and food traditions. RAFT uses an eater-based approach to conservation –reintroducing the stories and flavors of America’s traditional foods to larger audiences, so people are once again growing and consuming them sustainably. Founding RAFT partners include: American Livestock Breeds Conservancy, Chefs Collaborative, Cultural Conservancy, Native Seeds/SEARCH, Seed Savers Exchange, Slow Food USA, and Dr. Gary Nabhan.

For more information about the work of RAFT and future workshops, visit: http://www.slowfoodusa.org/index.php/programs/details/raft/.

Photos: Mark Dohm

Nothing could be simpler (or more affordable) than making apple butter for friends and family this holiday season.  I had thirty apples of varying sizes and types on hand from my CSA, and needed to make space in my crisper for Thanksgiving vegetables.  This led me to thinking about what I wanted to do with all of that fruit.  Indeed, making use of so much fruit for preserves means a lot of preserves, and a lot of preserves means having a great personalized gift. Many people are surprised when they taste homemade goods, and give the cook a lot of credit for her labors (little do they know, its not that hard!).

Give it a try, I promise, its difficult for even the most unskilled cook to mess up.  It takes a bit of time on the stove, but it will fill your home with alluring spice smells and make use of this season’s abundant orchard fruit.  For other versions, try making it with pears or quince.

Apple Butter

8-10 medium apples, peeled, quartered and cored
2-3 cups apple cider (enough almost to cover apples)
1 1/2 cup dark brown sugar (more to taste)
2 tablespoons cinnamon
1 tablespoon ginger
1 teaspoon nutmeg
1 teaspoon cloves

Place the apples and the cider in a pot and bring to a boil. Place a lid on the pot and simmer until apples are soft (about 20 minutes). Set aside to cool. Use a hand blender or regular blender to puree the cooked apples. Now, you have made apple sauce. Put the pot of apple sauce back on a medium flame, and add the sugar and spices (taste and adjust the flavor), stirring. The mixture should gradually darken as it cooks on low for 2-3 hours. Stir often. When finished, you should be able to place a dollop on a plate and it remain solid, without forming a ring of liquid around itself. Place in sterilized jars. It is delicious on bread, yogurt, ice cream, even sandwiches.