A is for Apple - an Apple a day keeps the doctor away ...

Harvest time is over, the mists, damp, grey skies are here, the cooling rain is in the air waiting to knock the final full fruits off their boughs, above the gnarled trunks, into the long damp grass beneath. The autumn offers us free foods in the hedgerows – the apples abound in the lanes, or are hidden in the back gardens or estates of larger properties lying on the ground providing essential fodder for insects, larvae, small mammals who can lay up extra nourishment before the winter sets in.

Cox’s Orange Pippin

The apple has seeded itself all over this England of ours, descended from the wild ancestors of the pomaceous fruit tree (“pomum” – Latin for apple) found growing in the mountains of western Asia (the species Malus domestica is part of the rose family, Rosaceae). Alexander the Great (356 – 323 BC) is credited with bringing the apple back to Macedonia (north of Greece), from where it spread, as exploration occurred, to the rest of the world.

Red Gravensteins

Winter apples, picked in the late autumn stored just above freezing, have been an important food in Asia and Europe for thousands of years, as well as the Americas with the arrival of the Europeans in 1492. Storage of the apple enabled it to become possibly the most versatile and ubiquitous fruit we have in the world. The Gravenstein apple, still considered the choicest apple by many Nova Scotians, for instance was possibly introduced by Russian fur traders travelling via Jutland, Denmark to the New World early in the 19th century.

Fairs and fetes bring the fun of apples out, or at home with the children participating in the making of toffee apples here in England .. an apple coated in hot toffee, left to cool before tucking in to that delicious mix of gooey toffee and fresh apple; or in the States as candy apples (a coating of hard crystallised sugar syrup) or even caramel apples.

The proverb “An apple a day keeps the doctor away” reputedly dates from 19th Century Wales .. came to remind us that there are enormous health benefits in an apple, particularly antioxidants, albeit there may be relatively low amounts of vitamin C, the fibrous content of apples may reduce the risk of bowel, prostate and lung cancer.

Five hundred years ago Henry VIII with his voracious appetite and vast court, needed to be fed at each of his palaces, or when a nobleman was honoured by a kingly visit, ensured continuation of the fashion for planting orchards filled with the fruit and nut trees of the day, also importing new species from the continent, guaranteeing a plentiful fresh larder at all times of the year.

Our two thousand year association with the apple and its various cultivars is still as strong today as it was then – in the last century it was realised that a great many of the old non-commercial varieties of tree were being lost, let alone the orchards themselves. These fields of fruit trees, with an undergrowth of meadow like habitat, have over the centuries provided symbiotic havens, for insect life, wild flowers, reptiles, small mammals and on the fringes the hedge rows provided natural plantings for use by blackbirds, song thrushes, woodpeckers and the like.

Alexander fighting the Persian king Darius III From Alexander Mosaic, from Pompeii, Naples Naples National Archaeological Museum (Battle of Issus 333BC - Mosaic detail)

There are 3,000 or so different types of apple, dessert apples and cookers, some readily available, others almost forgotten, surviving in old gardens or places that are tucked away – such as Bardsey Island. A gnarled and twisted trunk growing within ancient monastery boundaries on the island, was probably tended by the monks who lived there a thousand years ago: the Bardsey Apple has had cuttings taken, which will raise funds for the Island Trust, as well as save a singular apple species.

A Cider Press Jersey, Channel Islands

Who would think that names such as Slack-M-Girdle, Pig’s Snout and Hangy Down Cluster would refer to misshapen, tannic and rough-skinned apples ideal for making our English cider. While other ‘pomologists’ have been recording, crossing, classifying these fruits of the earth, these tempters of fate: as Eve found out – to ensure that we keep a rootstock of these delicious and subtly flavoured apples.

A dumpling – a Norfolk one – is an apple that has been brought back to life in the garden of a former rectory. A retired doctor found an ageing specimen, along with over 50 other varieties, in his orchard and it has taken this apple expert over 25 years to grow a young tree, which has finally fruited: the Norfolk Dumpling. We need dedication like this doctor in this day and age, with so much grubbing out and our lack of knowledge of these ancient natural plants, to ensure that these special varieties are preserved.

Apples do not grow true from seed, so in order to propagate a new tree a bit of the old is required: a piece of budded “scionwood” must be hand-grafted onto sturdy rootstock and nurtured as it grows. Think of the thousands of hands that have lovingly created countless new trees, since the Roman Naturalist, Pliny the Elder praised “the Lady apple” a tiny fruit in the first century AD.

Fresco from Pompeii with fruit. Annurca apples believed to be the apple depicted in frescoes at ruins of Herculaneum and mentioned in Pliny the Elder's "Naturalis Historia".

By the 1600s the French were devouring this succulent wee treasure, as it may be “eaten greedily with all its coat on” - the small fruits were able to be secreted about a courtier’s person in their pockets. Today in the States they ripen late in the season – hence being known as Christmas apples, or Annurca variety. Our ancestors knew the best way to eat these treats – raw as the peel adds to the winey, semi-sweet taste of the flesh.

Claude Monet's Still Life with Apples and Grapes (1880) Art Institute of Chicago

Cox’s Orange Pippins are our Christmas apples in England, their creamy-coloured flesh is crisp, fine-grained, hinting of Christmas tastes - honey, nuts and pears – they store well and can be used in a variety of ways. These too are relatively small, albeit commercial cultivars tend to have become larger fruits. As a child I remember shaking the ripe apple to see if their pips rattled, as they are only loosely held in, whereas other apples have their pips contained as part of the apple flesh.

The French Orchards in Normandy very possibly came from the pips dispersed by the Romans and Norsemen (early Normans!) in the pomace (the residue of skins, pulp, seeds and stems of the fruit), which was spread in the pastures as manure – resulting in many seedlings. The Normans brought large quantities of these apples trees to Britain after 1066.

Apple trees of many varieties live on, new cross variants being tested are so versatile and can be used in all sorts of recipes both savoury and sweet, soups, starters, breakfast, as a vegetable or a sauce, stuffed inside a game bird to give a bit of flavour and juice – or as an early cure for keeping the doctor away. Apples also have other attributes – such as keeping potatoes from budding, by including an apple amongst their midst; or how about putting an apple in the bag to ripen avocados or bananas? Such a treasure of a fruit ....

Dear Mr Postman on this weekend of gales and floods – thank you for delivering this story up to my mother – I have been taking my time as the apple is an enormous subject, and as I’ve a great many letters to write on my mother’s behalf for her birthday, together with the letters that I have felt I wanted to do for my uncle to let everyone, who was unable to attend the funeral, have ‘a feel’ of the day: which seems to have been appreciated: though I’m lettered out!

Hilary Melton-Butcher
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