Apple

220 Pages·2015·9 MB·English

by  Marcia Reiss

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
Yew Fred Hageneder
APPLE
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 Page references in the Photo Acknowledgements and
Index match the printed edition of this book.
Printed and bound in China by 1010 Printing International Ltd A catalogue record for this book is available
from the British Library eISBN: 9781780233826
Contents
Introduction: Backyard Apples
one Out of the Wild: An Ode and a Lament
two A Rose is a Rose is a Rose . . . is an Apple
three The Search for Sweetness
four Cider Chronicles
five The American Apple
six Apple Adulation
seven Good Apples
eight Bad Apples
nine Misplaced Apples
ten The Politics of Pomology
eleven Apples Today and Tomorrow
Apple Varieties
Timeline
References
Select Bibliography
Associations and Websites
Acknowledgements
Photo Acknowledgements
Index
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.
Introduction: Backyard Apples
Three 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 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 have fresh apples for sale
at their own farms, as farmers nearly everywhere 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
supermarket 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 introductions – 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.
An old sign at a Vermont apple orchard that has been operated by the same family for several generations.