Autumn in CNY: A Season of Taste and Color

By Michele Bazan Reed  |  bazanreed@hotmail.com

 

My daughter and son-in-law pulled into town for a visit, having driven five days from their home in warm and sunny Southern California — and where was their very first stop? Oswego’s Ontario Orchards for apple cider doughnuts, ice cold pints of cider and Thousand Islands cheese curds.

That’s because for most Central New Yorkers, the taste of home is the taste of autumn.

Who among us, when asked, “What is your favorite season?” responds anything other than fall? For a Central New York autumn is something very special.

There’s an unmistakable scent to the air, a crispness borne on the chill wind. The smell of fresh apples, the aroma of pumpkin pie spice and a whiff of burning leaves trigger a desire to don chunky sweaters and settle in with a cup of hot cocoa and an apple doughnuts.

The tastes of fall are everywhere and fuel our memories of autumns past.

Apples are the culinary king of Central New York as the year winds down.

Our climate is perfect to produce crispy apples with just the right combination of tang and sweetness.

And with all this delicious bounty of nature, Central New York celebrates everything about the apple.

From September Wonder and Honey Crisp to late varieties like Red and Golden Delicious and Granny Smith, CNY orchards have a wealth of choices.

My daughter is especially excited to receive the varieties she can’t get on the West Coast where she lives: Macintosh, Cortland and Empire. The Empire is a cross between Red Delicious and Macintosh, developed by Cornell agriculturalists in the 1940s. Other varieties developed here in Central New York include Fortune, a cross between Red Spy and Empire, also created at Cornell; and from the New York State Agricultural Experiment Station came Jonagold, which is a Jonathan and Golden Delicious cross and Macoun, which crosses Macintosh and Jersey Black.

Families traipse out to the orchards, to return with bushels of pick-your-own apples. It’s a day-long affair with fresh doughnuts, aged cheddar, popcorn, cider and apple-themed souvenirs.

There are apple festivals, where locals and visitors alike can enjoy apples in all their glorious variety — sweet, tart, juicy, crunchy.

Festival goers munch on apple treats like hot apple fritters, apple cider doughnuts and crunchy candy apples, all washed down with cider — either icy or hot and mulled with spices.

Arts and crafts vendors celebrate the season with apple-themed crafts and cozy items for cold weather comfort like hand knitted socks and crocheted blankets.

Home bakers and their families feast on the orchard’s harvest. My daughter especially loves to bake up a batch of apple crisp, topped with vanilla ice cream. Then there’s every variety of apple pie from the traditional two crust version to a lattice top and my personal favorite, Dutch Apple Pie with streusel on top.

Apples aren’t our only agricultural treat of autumn. Central New York is also blessed with a climate conducive to pumpkin and other squash. Oswego is home to the Central New York Pumpkin Festival, Oct. 4 and 5 this year. Live music, vendors and activities for kids celebrate the great gourds and the season of autumn.

Let’s not forget my favorite taste to enjoy in autumn (in fact, all year long): maple syrup.

There’s nothing like topping a slow-baked apple with a drizzle of maple syrup or sipping a cup of coffee sweetened with this local delicacy, while munching a fresh-made cinnamon doughnut.

And there’s plenty more to enjoy every weekend in the fall. You can take the grandkids out to the pumpkin patch or treat them to a trip through a corn maze. For the more adventurous, there are the haunted hay rides leading up to Halloween. There’s even a ghostly walking tour of Haunted Oswego year-round but especially chilling this time of year.

While our foods are a treat for our taste buds, and crunchy apples and dried leaves a delight for the ears, our eyes have plenty to feast on in autumn.

Our Adirondack Mountains and the hills south of Syracuse are especially gorgeous when nature clothes them in luminous hues of orange, red and yellow.

A leaf peeping drive up Route 3, a loop around one of the Finger Lakes or an afternoon aboard the Adirondack Scenic Railroad between Utica and Thendara Station in Old Forge offer nearby views of nature in all her glory.

But even closer to home, a walk through Green Lakes State Park, a bike ride on the Erie Canalway Trail or just enjoying a drive down Route 481 or Route 81, offer a chance to see magnificent vistas.

According to the Forestry Service of the US government, certain environmental factors make for the best autumn colors. Key among these are temperature and moisture.

The warmer days and cool crisp nights of a Central New York fall, cause the trees to stop producing chlorophyll. As the green color of chlorophyll recedes, it gives way to the brilliant hues of sugars left behind to feed the trees over winter.

But we don’t need to understand the science to appreciate nature’s art in painting our vistas in the bright hues of autumn.

The season’s so short — we need to catch the beauty of leaves at their peak, savor it and store it in our memories to brighten the gray days of winter.

Or we can employ our own art-making skills. Remember ironing leaves between two sheets of wax paper? Or creating leaf silhouettes using a toothbrush to create paint splatter? What fun activities to share with grandchildren or other young family members or friends. Even just drying leaves between the pages of a book preserves their beauty and lets us hold onto the wonder just a little longer.

For us there’s one eternal truth in Central New York: the beauty of autumn will give way to wintry winds and another season of our legendary snowfalls.

So let’s all get out there and enjoy the tastes, sounds and sights of Central New York’s most colorful season.