HOW DO YOU LIKE THEM APPLES?

Thanksgiving and harvest of wild fruit go so well together, writes Gary Luton.

Fall is apple harvest across Canada, from the Okanagan to the Annapolis Valley and beyond.

In the United Counties of Leeds and Grenville, set in the rocky, hardscrabble soil of the Canadian Shield north of Kingston, there is a special place called Wild Apple Hill. For the past three harvests, I’ve gathered apples from an abandoned orchard there and dried them or left small, bite-sized ones bobbing in Calvados over the winter.

A blend of seemingly wild and cultivated, these apples range from old-stock Snow apples — originating from a 300-year-old varietal known in Quebec as Fameuse — to longstemmed crab apples. Samuel de Champlain recounted the crab apple trees he saw near Georgian Bay in 1615. Developed from seed, instead of from a cultivar grafted onto a rootstock, each tree is unique.

While most abandoned apple trees are not technically wild, they often look and smack of wildness. There are two species of wild apples native to the milder climates of southern Canada.

Not that long ago, many Canadians grew their own apples, made cider and vinegar and swapped these products for provisions or services. A neglected orchard next to the old farmhouse my parents bought and restored when I was a child, in many ways, signalled the end of that era. The orchard was sold with the adjacent land and soon disappeared.

Some indigenous tribes wrapped wild crab apples in leaves to preserve them and buried them over the winter to temper their sharpness. French settlers living in Port Royal Nova Scotia (now Annapolis Royal), established the first “intended” orchards in Canada in the early 1600s, at least a generation before colonists to the south began to develop orchards.

Settlers from England and elsewhere in Europe also brought their apple growing proclivities with them to Canada in the 1700s. They were followed by Loyalists, such as the Scottish-Canadian farmer John McIntosh. A century later, Prairie farmers began to use crab apple cultivars from Siberia that would survive in our harsh climate.

Crosses between émigré and native apple trees thrived and multiplied, making for distinctive Canadian apples with names such as Saint Lawrence and Pomme Grise (also known as Pomme Canada).

These crosses followed with equally distinctive harvest recipes — from croquants aux pommes to apple pandowdy.

Since there is a movement to recover imperfect fruits and vegetables at the supermarket, why not harvest wild and abandoned apples? Our country lanes provide an abundance of old apple trees: some dropping their misshapen windfall onto the shoulder of the road; others, almost perfect in form, still on the branch.

Recent family trips have produced a bounty of roadside gems and at least one rare find: the petite Api-Etoile (also known as a Star Lady). Originating in Switzerland in the 1600s, its ribs resemble a five-pointed star.

The apple is a compelling symbol in folklore, legend and many religious texts, from rabbinical literature to the Old and New Testament and the Qur’an.

It is present in fairy tales and Greek, Norse and Celtic mythologies. All this may help to explain why Thanksgiving across Canada and harvest apples go so well together.

Since most of us will never own an orchard, having access to wild and abandoned apple trees is perhaps the next best thing. So, if you have never hand-picked or felt the distinctive taste of a wild apple, directly from a tree, you really should this season.

Perhaps for Canada’s 150th birthday, we should pay a more formal tribute and collectively adopt some of these wild and abandoned apple trees that have stood by Canadians from our earliest beginnings.

Helping to care for and maintain our unique apple inheritance would not only be an expression of gratitude, but ensure this annual bounty does not go unused.

The apple is a compelling symbol in folklore, legend and many religious texts.