smashing pumpkins 271burning leaves that invokes autumn for most people, for us it’s roasting
peppers.
My most nostalgic harvest rituals from childhood are of the apple vari-
ety. My parents took us on annual excursions to a family- owned orchard
in the next county where we could watch cider being pressed, and climb
into the trees to pick fruit that the clay- footed adults couldn’t reach. We
ate criminal quantities of apples up in the boughs. Autumn weather still
brings that crisp greenish taste to the roof of my mouth. I realized other
members of my family must share this olfactory remembrance of things
past, when our October gathering spontaneously rallied into a visit to an
apple orchard near our farm. We bought bushels, inspired to go home and
put up juice and apple butter.
I don’t know what rituals my kids will carry into adulthood, whether
they’ll grow up attached to homemade pizza on Friday nights, or the scent
of peppers roasting over a fire, or what. I do know that flavors work their
own ways under the skin, into the heart of longing. Where my kids are
concerned I find myself hoping for the simplest things: that if someday
they crave orchards where their kids can climb into the branches and
steal apples, the world will have trees enough with arms to receive them.