Daily Mail - Daily Mail Weekend Magazine
Crunch Time for our pples
A charming new book highlights the delicious heritage apple varieties we’re in danger of losing for ever
The chances are that if you’ve bought any apples recently they were either Royal Gala, Jazz, Braeburn, Pink Lady or Granny Smith. Although the National Fruit Collection at Brogdale Farm in Kent grows two thousand different kinds of apples, only a handful of them make it into the supermarkets. Unless you shop at farm shops or farmers’ markets, or are lucky enough to have your own apple trees, you’ll probably only have tasted a fraction of the wonderful apples available in Britain.
Recent research has suggested that the ancestors of today’s domesticated apples first grew around the area where China now borders Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan. Although we think of apples as being quintessentially British, they were actually introduced here by the Romans – before then, Britons had to make do with native crab apples. One of the remarkable things about apples is how adaptable they are, growing happily in places as diverse as Europe, North America, Australasia, South Africa and even cooler parts of India.
A delightful new book, Heritage Apples, sheds light on some of the varieties we’re in danger of losing. Author Caroline Ball has long been fascinated by the Herefordshire Pomona, an illustrated 1870s compendiumofbritain’s best apples and pears, and set out to sample as many of the historical apple varieties as she could.
With names like Peasgood’s Nonsuch, Lancashire Crab, Duck’s Bill, Cornish Gilliflower and Golden Pippin, it’s not surprising each variety has its own quirk. ‘Some are best eaten fresh off the tree, others’ flavour improves with time,’ Caroline says. ‘Some are harvested in July, others aren’t ready to pick until November.’ Although she decided not to include all of the apples from the original Herefordshire Pomona – ‘some were woolly or sour or just tasteless’ – many of these hard-tofind apples are full of flavour.
To try some of them we went to Keepers Nursery in Kent, a leading supplier of fruit trees that stocks more than 600 apple varieties. Co-owner Karim Habibi picked a selection of heritage apples for us and we munched our way through them, making tasting notes like Masterchef judges. We tried apples including Gravenstein (a bit acid), Duchess’s Favourite (a pretty red, but soft) and Blenheim Orange (firm and juicy) before we hit gold. Caroline loved Saint Edmund’s Pippin, describing it as ‘a wonderful combination of honey sweetness counterbalanced by an underlying fruity acidity’, while I was completely smitten by Pitmaston Pine Apple. The taste is a gorgeous mix of honey, vanilla and, yes, a hint of pineapple; sadly the skin is an unappealing brown, which may explain why it’s fallen out of favour, but I’d swap this for my regular Galas and Granny Smiths any day.
Although 90 per cent of the orchards in England and Wales have disappeared since the 1950s, Caroline is cautiously optimistic about the future of our heritage apples. There is renewed interest in them, community orchards are springing up across the country – there are now around 400 – and, since 2007, orchards have had priority status in the UK Biodiversity Action Plan.
‘We must cherish our heritage apples, or lose them,’ Caroline warns. So if you’re planning to plant a new apple tree, why not choose an unusual variety? And, if you come across an apple you’ve never heard of before, give it a try – there are some wonderful flavours waiting to be discovered. n
Heritage Apples by Caroline Ball (£25, Bodleian Library). www. keepersnursery.co.uk. The National Apple Festival at Brogdale Collections is being held today and tomorvisit row, brogdalecollections.org.