Applesauce belongs to all meals and all courses in the traditional Amish diet. It has most often filled the place of a salad, standing against the rich meats and mainstays, lightening their effects on stomachs. Applesauce may be served with dessert, but seldom alone as dessert. It accompanies cake and cookies well. In fact, some Amish cooks admit to mixing applesauce and apple butter to fill their schnitz pies rather than beginning from scratch with dried apple slices. Applesauce goes well with fried potatoes, scrapple, and eggs for breakfast. It even works as a snack—ladled over hot toast! Fresh applesauce is best, contend these aficionados. The fruit press stands ready in the cellar stairway of many Amish kitchens, since the apples that drop from the trees in the yard or orchard furnish enough for day-to-day use. Each cook knows which apple makes the sauce her family most enjoys. When that apple comes into season she gears up for a major producing canning operation. It is the moment to secure a year’s-worth of applesauce for family and guests.