Around the middle of August, the first English apples of the season start ripening. It’s time for a joyous rediscovery of the astonishing diversity of British apples, with a succession of varieties harvested between now and December.
Discovery apples
First of the season: Discovery apples
Discovery is the earliest main commercial variety, ready for picking in mid-August and on sale almost immediately. Find them at markets, in greengrocers and the more enlightened supermarkets.
For a brief few weeks, these green and red flushed apples are the best around, deliciously juicy, crunchy and aromatic. As a summer apple, it is perhaps appropriate that there’s a hint of strawberry about the flavour. They don’t cook particularly well but are sublimely delicious eaten simply raw, pair well with soft fruit in a fruit salad and make good juice.
The earliest apples
According to leading top fruit marketer, Norman Collett, this year’s early summer heatwave brought forward the start of the Discovery harvest, with the very first apples on sale at Tesco’s Pembury store on Tuesday 24th July. Discoveries went on sale across Kent on 3rd August and nationwide a week later.
Not for storage
Unlike some later varieties, such as the Cox’s Orange Pippin, the Discovery is best eaten soon after harvest and only becomes soft and tasteless if stored for more than a week.
Many of the later varieties store well enough to be enjoyed as late as March, but only cookers like the Bramley are good throughout the year.
A recent heritage
The Discovery is a relatively new addition to the hundreds of varieties of apple grown in Britain (the National Fruit Collection at Brogdale has 1,882 varieties, from ADW Atkins to Zomer Delicious) but venerable in the company of other commercially grown apples.
Discovery’s origins
Essex farmworker, Mr Dummer, of Langham, near Colchester in Essex, raised the very first Discovery seedling in 1949, probably from the pip of a Worcester Pearmain, crossed with Beauty of Bath. (Local exotics: the journey of apples from Kyrgyzstan to East Anglia describes how the genetic diversity of apples is such that the seedling of any pip is effectively a new variety.) According to the excellent East of England Apples and Pears Project, the original tree still survives.
Legend has it that, having only one arm, he asked his wife to help plant out the young seedlings, but she slipped and broke her ankle. The seedling was left lying on the ground, protected only by some sacking, but somehow survived. Dummer recognised the qualities of the new apple: ripening early like its parent the Worcester Pearmain, resistance to disease and late frosts, a tendency not to drop and better storing potential than other early apples.
From garden tree to national markets
Dummer’s apple was eventually noticed by Jack Matthews, a nurseryman from Thurston, near Bury St Edmunds in Suffolk. He took grafts and started selling trees under the name Thurston August. In 1962, the name was changed to the snappier Discovery and the apple went on to become the leading early commercial British variety.
The Discovery is an easy apple to grow and the fruits are all the more delicious eaten straight from the tree. Keepers Nursery sells one and two year-old trees on various rootstocks.
More to come…
The Discovery is just one of the first English apples to enjoy, soon to be followed by Laxton’s Early Crimson, Early Windsor, Blenheim Orange, D’Arcy Spice, Ribston Pippin, Cox’s Orange Pippin and many, many more.
Further reading on apples
Read the Tracing Paper on the origins of apples and Bramley apples.
Find links to apple resources online and in print at foodresources.co.uk.
This post is my entry for Weekend Herb Blogging, hosted this week by Marija from Palachinka.
