Community Apple Press: a Quintessential Slow Food Experience

By September 30, 2015 September 6th, 2019 Blog
School classes working the Community Apple Press - A Quintessential Slow Food Experience

Hi there Slow Food supporters.  

I am not sure whether you have been up to the Sebastopol Community Apple Press to help out yet this season, but after my awesome day there yesterday, I want to really encourage you to do it before the end of the season because this is a quintessential Slow Food experience!

We have 5 more press days left….October 17 and 18, 24 and 25, and October 31.

People of all ages, families, grandparents, young people, all parade in eagerly carrying their bags and boxes of apples.  Most say they are excited and have been waiting for their time slot.  Many have picked their apples from their fields, their yards, their neighbors or landlords yards, or have gone to one of our UPIck locations or farmsteads.

Some of the apples are wormy, some are dirty, some are pristine.

We give them a washing station, cutting boards and knives, and they put their apples in to the chopper themselves and then, oh joy, watch the beautiful juice come pouring out.

Everyone is happy, thrilled to take their precious juice home.  Some make hard cider, some freeze the extra juice to drink all year.

Last week we had a school group.  30 kids.  They had picked probably 1000 lbs of apples.  They washed and pressed and poured their juice and left with about 48 gallons!  They each took some home and shared the rest with the rest of their school.  

Later that week they took a field trip to the sheep farm WHERE WE HAD BROUGHT THE POMACE FROM THEIR APPLES.  They got to see how happy the sheep were with the pomace.  What a cycle of life.

We think we have pressed over 30,000 pounds of apples this season so far!

So do yourselves a favor and don’t miss this. Come up and help out for a few hours.  It’s a real Slow Food experience. Contact me at mailto:info@slowfoodrr.org

Paula Shatkin has been a Slow Food leader for 15 years.  She started the Sebastopol Gravenstein Apple Presidium – the only Slow Food Presidium in California and the most active Presidium project in the U.S.

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