The lost orchard
At his restaurant Le Manoir aux Quat’Saisons chef Raymond Blanc has planted an apple orchard using traditional English cultivars that meet his very specific five taste tests
“I began to dream about an orchard filled with thousands of fruit trees,” recalls chef Raymond Blanc. “Today at Belmond Le Manoir we have an orchard with over 150 ancient cultivar of apple. Each one has its heritage in a village or a county that used to thrive on that particular cultivar. They tell the story not only of what we have lost in Britain but also what we could regain.”
My approach to the food we grow at Belmond Le Manoir aux Quat’Saisons has always been the same: I want to understand the nuances of every cultivar in order to discover which cooking technique will suit it best, and with my team we go to extraordinary lengths to do this, whether it is tasting 50 aubergines or 40 chillies (an eye-watering experience!). The orchard is about heritage and beauty, but crucially it is also about flavour; and so we needed to discover which apples to grow for the kitchen. I have never understood my British friends’ approach of splitting apples into just two single categories – cooking and eating – or perhaps three, if you add in cider apples. The Victorians identified certain, more acidic, apples as destined for the kitchen, and other ‘dessert’ apples for enjoying raw. However, they also understood which of the ‘cooking’ apples, in which season, would make the best sauce, jellies, pies, soufflés or dumplings. But much of that old knowledge has been lost, and it is still far too restrictive for me.
So I set my own five specific tests. I wanted to know which apple would give the best juice and how each cultivar would behave when puréed, baked whole, in a tarte Maman Blanc [Raymond’s signature apple tart, based on his mother’s recipe] or a tarte tatin. I consulted my expert friends about which apples to taste, especially the most treasured heritage varieties, and then [local apple expert] Marcus Roberts scoured orchards and walled gardens around the country to assemble the very best sun-kissed examples. Over an exhausting two weeks we tested and tasted over a hundred apples and it was a huge and valuable undertaking, the like of which I don’t believe has been done in any other kitchen.
For juicing, you need a fruit with relatively high acidity and vitamin C to retain the colour. Usually green apples, like ‘Granny Smith’, make the best juices when you use the whole of the skin – although I must say the best apple juice I have ever tasted is made with the ‘Egremont Russet’. For purée, or for a pie or crumble, the apple must be very moist and have enough acidity to break down quickly, like ‘Cox’s Orange Pippin’ or ‘Red Windsor’. I want an appetising colour and characterful flavour that needs no sugar or hardly any at all.
For baking a whole apple, I want a fruit like ‘Chivers Delight’ or ‘D’Arcy Spice’, which will hold its shape without blistering too much or worse, collapsing, while the flesh should remain moist and become meltingly soft. For a tarte tatin, an apple must be tight enough to hold its shape and also it must have a high acidity. Why? Because we are going to add caramel, and so the apple must combat the sweetness.
Our favourites include ‘Cox’s Orange Pippin’, ‘Devonshire Quarrenden’ and ‘Granny Smith’. And for a tarte Maman Blanc, I am looking for an apple such as ‘Captain Kidd’ or ‘Lord Lambourne’, with the perfect balance of acidity and sugar, and enough texture to allow the crescents of apple to keep their shape, but fluff up, and turn a beautiful golden colour.
It was most important to me that our judges were not only our chefs, but our gardeners too – and anyone who happened to be passing by: a guest, a housekeeper… we are all inclusive! For the past 35 years my vision for Le Manoir aux Quat’Saisons has been to bond together the garden and the kitchen. A chef needs to go out into the gardens and understand the provenance and seasonality of a fruit or vegetable, what are the best varieties for specific dishes, and how they are grown; and a gardener needs to come into the kitchen and understand how a fruit or vegetable has been affected by the weather, or its level of ripeness… all these small variables make a difference in terms of taste. When chefs and gardeners understand and respect each other and the challenges they each face, you have a marvellous creative environment and beautiful food for our guests.
So what did we learn together? Well, we found that most apples are good at something and some are good at a few. A handful, such as ‘Adams’s Pearmain’, ‘Devonshire Quarrenden’ and ‘Discovery’ are good at many things; and a few shining stars like ‘Cox’s Orange Pippin’, ‘Red Windsor’ and the rare ‘Cheddar Cross’ can achieve almost anything. Very occasionally an ancient cultivar turns out not to be very good at anything, as our rigorous examination exposed the truth that a romantic name and a treasured history may not always be enough to satisfy the demands of our changing gastronomy and our customers’ expectations.
Also I have to acknowledge that, since every cultivar not only has its season, but its perfect moment when the balance of sugars and acidity combine to produce perfection, we may not have done justice to every one. Flavour depends much upon the season, and many varieties require a really hot summer to develop their highest qualities. Will Sibley, who has tasted thousands of apples and other fruits in his role as chairman of the trustees at the East Malling Research Centre, is as romantic as this Frenchman when it comes to searching for that moment. “When a particular cultivar ripens to a certain point on a certain day and the sugar levels are a perfect match for the flavenoids. That is when the magic happens, and you remember it forever,” says Will.
‘CAPTAIN KIDD’
21 trees in my English orchard ORIGIN Hawkes Bay, New Zealand, 1962 SEASON Mid-October APPEARANCE Deep red BEST FOR Eating fresh, juice and tarts
TASTING AND COOKING NOTES
Raw, this is an exciting apple: juicy, crunchy, with a tight flesh and fabulous flavours, and it made a delicious single-cultivar juice with a gentle and well-balanced sweetness and a big apple flavour. Baked whole it had an excellent texture and flavour, and in a tarte tatin the aromatics were seductive and layered, but the texture did not hold so well and there was not enough acidity to combat the caramel. No apple rated as highly in our tastings for the tarte Maman Blanc test. The tart looked glorious, fluffy and golden, and the acidity of the apple carried the sweetness and flavours with wonderful aromatics including a faint scent of rose petal.
GROWING NOTES
Has beautiful crimson blossom, is resistant to mildew and scab but can be prone to apple canker. It is a triploid cultivar. Harvested in mid-October, the apples can keep well through to January.
‘CHIVERS DELIGHT’
52 trees in my English orchard ORIGIN Cambridge, around 1920 SEASON Mid-late October APPEARANCE Slightly flattened, golden with orange-red flush BEST FOR Eating fresh, juice, baking whole and tarte tatin
TASTING AND COOKING NOTES
Mostly classified as a ‘good eating apple’ but this pigeon-holing is a crying shame because I found it to have so many more exceptional and surprising qualities. Straight from the tree it is a joy: honeyed, yet refreshingly juicy, crisp, aromatic and delicately sweet; and it makes a delicious juice. Baked whole, it was a star: no collapsing here, the apple stood proud without a blister, firm but melting. It made a divine tarte tatin – somehow the wonderful honey flavours and perfume did not make the tart too sweet.
GROWING NOTES
Easy to grow in the garden and resistant to many pests, although prone to canker, the ‘Chivers Delight’ will do best in a sunny spot and autumn sunshine will produce the best fruit, as the apples ripen quite late in the season. If the apples are kept cool they can be stored until around
January time.
‘DEVONSHIRE QUARRENDEN’
48 trees in my English orchard ORIGIN Devon, 1678 SEASON August/September APPEARANCE Deep crimson with occasional red flecks in the flesh BEST FOR Eating fresh, purée, tarts and tarte tatin
TASTING AND COOKING NOTES
Now rarely seen, so its praises need to be sung. Juicy, with a great crunch and a surprising hint of strawberry, this is simply a delicious apple when eaten raw. It also made excellent juice and a very lovely purée, but was clearly not appropriate for baking whole, as the flesh remained too firm. Most remarkably, this old apple could have been made for the tarte Maman Blanc. The fluffy slices kept their distinctive character with a lovely balance of acidity and sweetness. And, what is even more exceptional, this apple also performed brilliantly in a tarte tatin – a feat that very few apples that make a good purée can achieve.
GROWING NOTES
The trees are a triploid cultivar [needs another apple to fertilise it], but crop well and are known to tolerate quite windy, wet locations (though some old-time gardeners recommend a sheltered location with light soils for best results).
‘EGREMONT RUSSET’
110 trees in my English orchard ORIGIN Somerset, 1872
SEASON Late September/October APPEARANCE Yellowy-gold to orangey-brown russet
BEST FOR Juice
TASTING AND COOKING NOTES
When an apple makes an extraordinary juice it can often mean that it doesn’t like to be puréed – and sadly this was the case with ‘Egremont Russet’. It baked whole quite well, but the flesh was rather meaty and dry. In a tarte Maman Blanc it had some good, layered perfume and richness, although that meatiness remained, so the apple slices were lacking in moisture. This was also a factor in the tarte tatin. Nevertheless, I love this apple and it has found its true place at Le Manoir aux Quat’Saisons as the base of our own apple juice.
GROWING NOTES
A good, small tree for a garden. It crops well, especially against a wall, where it can also be trained as an espalier, as it will do best in a sunny spot. It is late-flowering, so can avoid the frost. The fruit is resistant to scab, though the foliage can be affected, and it is vulnerable to woolly aphid. Late-picked apples will store through to December.
‘LORD LAMBOURNE’
26 trees in my English orchard ORIGIN Bedfordshire, 1907 SEASON Mid September APPEARANCE Bright red flush and streaks over gold
BEST FOR Tarts, eating fresh, juice
TASTING AND COOKING NOTES
Eaten from the tree, ‘Lord Lambourne’ is top tier. Crisp to the bite and with thin skin and juicy flesh, a big, layered, wellbalanced flavour, with a little sugar present. Its juice was fabulous, and although it didn’t excel as a purée, baked whole or in a tarte tatin, it delighted us with one of the two best tarte Maman Blanc experiences of all the 112 apples tested. It was surpassed only by the tiniest of margins by the ultimate champion of the tarts: ‘Captain Kidd’.
GROWING NOTES
This is a good cultivar to grow in a garden, as the trees are quite compact, of medium vigour, and should give a good, regular, crop of apples. Also the cultivar is now largely disease-free. The trees are partial tip-bearers [fruit produced at the tips of branches] so it is best not to prune them heavily. Apples picked in mid-to-late September can be stored until November.
‘RED WINDSOR’
17 trees in my English orchard ORIGIN Worcestershire, 1985 SEASON Late September APPEARANCE Deep scarlet BEST FOR Everything
TASTING AND COOKING NOTES
This is such a wonderful apple so I have to ask, why can we not find it in shops and supermarkets? At its peak of ripeness it had all the qualities of a great apple: crisp and juicy with a big injection of rich, layered flavours, acidity and a delicate perfume. It made a lovely juice and it puréed well and quickly. Whole, it baked wonderfully well, although as it’s a small – but perfectly formed – apple, you might need two. When it came to the tarte Maman Blanc, the apple was simply exquisite, and incredibly it made one of the best tarte tatins of all the cultivars we tested.
GROWING NOTES
Has the advantage of being self fertile, disease free, and the blossoms have some resistance to frost. The cultivar is also a compact grower. The apples stay on the tree when ripe and so don’t have to be picked at once, but when harvested in mid-to-late September the fruit can be stored until December.