apple Reaktion’s Botanical series is the first of its kind, integrating horticultural and botanical writing with a broader account of the cultural and social impact of trees, plants and flowers. Already published Apple Marcia Reiss Bamboo Susanne Lucas Cannabis Chris Duvall Geranium Kasia Boddy Grasses Stephen A. Harris Lily Marcia Reiss Oak Peter Young Pine Laura Mason Willow Alison Syme |ew Fred Hageneder APPLE Y Marcia Reiss reaktion books Published by reaktion books ltd 33 Great Sutton Street London ec1v 0dx, uk www.reaktionbooks.co.uk First published 2015 Copyright © Marcia Reiss 2015 All rights reserved No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publishers Printed and bound in China by 1010 Printing International Ltd A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library isbn 978 1 78023 340 6 Contents Y Introduction: Backyard Apples 7 one Out of the Wild: An Ode and a Lament 15 two A Rose is a Rose is a Rose . is an Apple 19 three The Search for Sweetness 43 four Cider Chronicles 59 five The American Apple 77 six Apple Adulation 101 seven Good Apples 123 eight Bad Apples 137 nine Misplaced Apples 157 ten The Politics of Pomology 169 eleven Apples Today and Tomorrow 185 Apple Varieties 203 Timeline 230 References 234 Select Bibliography 245 Associations and Websites 246 Acknowledgements 248 Photo Acknowledgements 250 Index 252 Introduction: Backyard Apples Y hree old apple trees, the survivors of an unknown orchard, still grow around my mid-nineteenth-century home in ∏ upstate New York. I don’t know how old they are or what kind of apples they bear. Their history is as mysterious as their unpredictable apple production, bountiful one year and barren the next, yet full of fragrant blossoms each spring. During the occasional seasons of bounty, my husband and I pick bushels of apples from the two trees close to the house and peel and slice them, carefully carving around the occasional worm. Small and mostly misshapen, they pale in comparison to the shiny red orbs in supermarket bins, but they add a delicious tang to apple sauce and sweetened desserts. The third tree, a tall, solitary figure in the meadow across the road, has not been pruned for generations, and its broad, twiggy head becomes a cloud of white blooms each May. It is a milestone in our landscape and a welcome sign of renewal. One of its largest branches, thicker than a man’s thigh, has split off the main trunk. Bent like an elbow with its broad forearm resting on the ground, it still lives and sends up new shoots and buds every spring. The meadow grasses grow around it, and by the end of summer when the apples appear, the thicket is so dense that only deer can taste the fruit. This trio of trees is a remnant of apple history, a microcosm of the orchards that grew on nearly every New York and New England opposite: An old apple tree near the author’s home is a survivor of the orchards that grew on nearly every New York and New England farm in the 19th century. 7 apple farm in the nineteenth century. They are the distant descendants of European transplants introduced in the early years of colonial settlement. But their story is much older than the orchards of America or Europe, and the tale is still unfolding. Both meat and drink, apples have been a staple of the human diet for millennia. Eaten out of hand, baked into pies and tarts, boiled into sauce, butter and jelly, pressed for cider and juice, distilled into brandy, vinegar and wine, and dried for a long-term food supply, they have sustained, delighted and intoxicated people throughout the world. The pruned branches of the tree were also put to good use for the intricate parts of early machines, the cogs, wheels and shuttles. Small branches, aromatic long after cutting, were turned into spoons to stir apple sauce and churn butter.1 From the time of Charlemagne to Johnny Appleseed, America’s apple evangelist of the nineteenth century, planting apple trees was a requirement for new settlements. It not only provided food and wood, but also helped people to put down roots, investing in the future of their new towns. Commercial cultivation has become a global enterprise, with America and China as the largest producers, yet small orchards still An old sign at a Vermont apple orchard that has been operated by the same family for several generations. 8 Introduction Red Delicious apples, temptingly red and shiny, nonetheless usually reach the market bland and mealy. have fresh apples for sale at their own farms, as farmers nearly every- where did centuries ago. I buy apples from several small orchards within a short drive of our home, eagerly awaiting the start of each autumn when the fruit snaps with taste. For years I avoided super- market apples, particularly the omnipresent Red Delicious. Shaped like fat teeth, they are not at all toothsome, usually too sweet and cottony after months in cold storage. This staple of the school cafeteria has come to represent everything that went wrong with modern apple breeding. But I have seen apple cultivation change within my own lifetime, from the mass production of a handful of uniform varieties to the increasing appearance of apples with improved taste and texture. Australia’s Granny Smith, New Zealand’s Gala, Japan’s Fuji, Minnesota’s Honeycrisp and several other recent intro- ductions – and especially the growing number of small orchards reviving heirloom apples (those dating back at least 50 years and still untouched by modern breeding) – are finally giving the Red Delicious serious competition. 9 apple Yet supermarket choices are still limited, and shoppers face higher prices for the tastier apples. My market carries more than a dozen kinds of apple, plus a few organic alternatives – a better selec- tion than the two or three standards of the 1960s, but nowhere near the thousands of varieties available before the apple became a cor- porate product. In the autumn, when trees in the nearby orchards are dotted red with apples, the supermarket also offers bags of the local fruit along with those that have travelled thousands of miles across the country and from other continents. But finding a tasty, healthy apple is still a challenge. I was dis- heartened to read a supermarket sign from one major producer boasting that its latest variety had reached the top of the apple sweet- ness chart, the pinnacle known as ‘supersweet’. Even apples, supposedly the healthy alternative to junk food, are part of America’s unrelenting promotion of sugary food. And the push towards ever-sweeter apples has made a mockery of ‘an apple a day keeps the doctor away’, since Golden Delicious, one of the world’s most popular apples, has fewer nutrients than many other varieties, according to a u.s. study in 2003. 10 Introduction the sweetest apples often have the fewest nutrients.2 More troubling is the apple’s recurring place on the ‘Dirty Dozen’ list, the annual rating of supermarket fruits and vegetables with the greatest pesticide residues. It has been on the list, compiled by a u.s. environmental organization, for years, and in 2011 and 2012 reached the unenviable position of number one.3 Things are looking more hopeful, though, for those wishing to find a better apple – and in some unlikely places. Apple picking in country orchards has been a tradition for generations of city dwellers, but even the Big Apple is experiencing a new apple movement, one that harks back to an old appreciation for the fruit’s diverse flavours and textures, without today’s chemicals. In 1758 New York City sent the first shipment of its own commercially grown apples to Europe. Benjamin Franklin, a diplomat in London at the time, had asked for his favourite, the Newtown Pippin. The first commercial orchard in the colonies, now located in Queens, a borough of New York City, had raised the variety in about 1730 from a chance seedling, known as a pippin. It became New York’s most famous apple, and was in demand in Europe and America throughout the next century. Queen Victoria loved its piney flavour so much that Parliament lifted the import duty on it until the First World War.4 But as New York growers followed the trend towards producing uniformly red, cloyingly sweet apples, the tart, green-tinged Newtown Pippin dis- appeared from grocery shops and farm stalls alike. Today, young urban gardeners are planting Newtown Pippin saplings in New York’s inner-city neighbourhoods and parks, reconnecting New Yorkers to their apple history.5 The same is happening with other heirloom varieties in Los Angeles, San Francisco, Seattle, Portland, Boston and Detroit. The newfound zeal for heirlooms (also known as heritage or antique plants) is not limited to apples. Gardeners, farmers and foodies in many parts of the world are planting old varieties of fruit and vegetables to savour their lost taste. Whether your desire is for 11 apple Auguste Renoir, Still-life with Apples, oil on canvas. Apples are the most prevalent fruit in still-life painting. freshly picked sweetcorn or vine-ripened tomatoes, supermarket produce can never compete with the taste and nutritional value of seasonal food from your local farm stall or garden. So why all the fuss about apples? Because apples have always represented more than something we eat.