I want to update my claim to being an applesauce making fiend. I stand corrected.
The folks I had over to dinner the other night-- without knowing about my stint as the applesauce queen-- brought over 2 jars of applesauce for me and mentioned they'd be "doing applesauce again on Monday," and invited me to come.
Now I know what a true applesauce making fiend is like. This family was spending their second day making applesauce in its truest sense. There was a trailer about the size of a medium U-haul trailer, and it had been full, I mean FULL, of apples. Then in their side yard they had set up camping stoves, about 8 of them, simmering stock pots full of apples, and 2 of them had pressure canners. Apparently on Saturday when the true applesauce making machine was at its hayday, there were a total of 14 burners, not to mention the folks working the assembly line.
They had a crank-turning applesauce squisher. One person would pour the apples in the top, one would plunge them down into the squisher, while another person would turn the crank as fast as their little arm would crank. Then someone would be washing jars, one person filling them, while another person would wipe them off, cap them, and put them in the pressure canner.
On Saturday they canned 146 quarts or something, and we probably did upwards of 70 or 80 quarts last night. They were really scraping to find more jars. I was told to come only if I could bring some jars. :) But we had enough.
This applesauce factory apparently is an annual event. It started back in the day when the mom decided to learn how to can stuff. She would spend all day in the kitchen and finish the day with like 4 or 5 quarts of canned goods. The dad, an engineer, saw all this effort and didn't believe that the purpose of canning was just to learn how to can stuff. He then engineered the applesauce factory, saying that if they're going to go through all that effort, they are going to get results!
And this year I get to take home about 6 jars of that result!