Although cultivated across the nation, certain fruits have become specifically identified with the Midwest. With the felling of forests in the 1800s, farmers planted fruit trees, especially apple trees, and soon orchards appeared throughout the region. The Midwest is where the legend of Johnny Appleseed is rooted and remembered; John Chapman scattered his apple seeds (or rather planted set-up tree nurseries) across Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, and Iowa. Apple cider is an all-time favorite, and making apple butter is an old tradition maintained in kitchens throughout the Midwest and as a part of historic reenactments at local living-history museums. Cider mills and pick-your-own orchards are scattered through the area and provide popular excursion sites, especially in the fall. Sour cherry orchards, established by early homesteaders in northwest Michigan, spawned a range of foods and traditions—preserves, dried cherries, juice, pies, soups—maintained in local family foodways and prized throughout the region. Since 1988 cherries have even been utilized as an extender in ground meat to improve its nutritional value. The climate tempered by Lake Michigan makes Michigan the leading producer of tart cherries, supplying approximately 75 percent of the total U.S. crop. This same climate also makes Wisconsin’s Door Peninsula an important cherry-growing area. Families flock to pick-your-own cherry orchards in the summer to stock up, just as they go to apple orchards in the fall.
