Investigating Apples
Of the 7,500 varieties of apples in existence worldwide, most of us have only tried just a few. Sure, everyone is familiar with the Granny Smiths and the Honeycrisps of the world, part of the handful of varieties sold in grocery stores across the country. But few have held a massive Wolf River apple with two hands while taking a bite. Fewer have cut open a Pink Pearl to reveal its streaked, rosy interior. That’s because with the modernization of farming across the country came the sacrifice of thousands of apple varieties that, while ridiculously flavorful, couldn’t be shipped as far or stored as long to reach the shelves. In the 1800s, America possessed more varieties of apples than any other country in the world. But today, tracking down thousands of apple varieties lost in time can require a background in forensic investigation.
An image from the Fedco Seeds booth at the Common Ground Country Fair
While visiting the Common Ground Country Fair in Unity Maine, I brought my favorite apple along with me. It was one I had found while walking along a dirt road in my town, nothing like any apple I had ever bought in a grocery store. I headed to the booth run by Fedco Seeds, a vegetable seed and tree supplier, in hopes of tracking down some info on which of the 7,500 varieties I had just learned to cherish. Fedco grows and sells nearly 100 different varieties of apple trees, specializing in rarer varieties that are well suited for short growing seasons. Sadly, they weren’t able to tell me what type of apple it is, but they let me know I could submit a paper bag of 5 samples in hopes of being identified later by an apple expert.
All this investigating was sparked by a recent Nature Links class about apples. This being apple season, after all, Nature Links participants were presented with an “Apple Challenge”. Go out and do something, anything, with apples! Their interaction with apples could be through baking, drawing, tasting, reading, writing or any form they chose, as long as they took a picture of their experience. Many took their “homework” very seriously! One participant baked an apple crisp, and another dried apples and arranged them in gorgeous sage smudge sticks adorned with mint flowers. One participant created an apple-themed collage from magazine images and another dug out his father’s coveted apple paperweight. One participant said she made an apple turnover, but she ate it so fast that she forgot to take a picture!
Just a few of the things Nature Links participants created in our recent “Apple Challenge”
So our apple challenge was successful, not just because we made things using apples, but also because we became more aware of how and why and what type of apples grow around us. Becoming more aware of the food that is grown in our own communities is not only informative and helpful but it is arguably political. Apples aren‘t the only food we consume in America that has been oversimplified, watered down, made artificial, or compromised for the sake of profit. Becoming more aware of rare apple varieties is a subversively powerful way of standing up to corporate hegemony and promoting autonomy over what and how we feed ourselves. I may never find the answer to what variety I’ve been savoring, but I know a lot more about food than I did last week.
So in closing, here’s some food for thought: If you ate a new “apple a day” every single day, it would take you more than 20 years to sample every variety of apple in existence. Now that would be an impressive feat!
