Like many of the most abundant foods, the apple has depths and complexities obscured by its familiarity. The dynamic of the modern food industry acts as a strong, almost irresistible, spur towards uniformity and conformity, but thousands of varieties of apple still exist beyond the cosmetically perfect examples of the supermarket shelf.
The late Victorians recognised that the apple, though a humble fruit, has princely qualities. While the aristocracy vied to display abundant collections of the fruit grown on their estates and discussed them in terms we’d think more fit for wines, the common people enjoyed an increasingly plentiful supply of fruit, as transportation improved and orchards increased. Breeders worked hard to develop new varieties, and, through industrious and competitive cross-breeding, created many of the apples still popular today.
Exotic ancestry
Our most abundant temperate fruit has an exotic ancestry. Although the European crab apple, Malus sylvestris, is a native, if occasional, resident of our hedgerows and woods, the dessert apple, Malus domestica, was brought to this island by the Romans and has far more distant origins.
In the May 2001 edition of the journal of food and cookery, Petit Propos Culinaire, Dr Barrie Juniper describes an expedition to the forests of the Tien Shan mountains, where China, Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan meet. After a long and somewhat harrowing journey, he emerges from his yurt one morning to find himself amidst the fragments of a wild fruit forest, surrounded by apparently cultivated apples and other fruit.
This is where the homely apple – along with the quince, pear, plum and apricot – belongs. DNA analysis shows that the apples of these forests at the very heart of the Indo-European continent are the direct ancestors of our familiar apples. The people of the region are able create orchards simply by clearing the less fruitful trees to leave standing the ones that bear large, juicy fruit.
Selecting succulent fruit
Dr Juniper’s hypothesis is that all Malus fruits were originally small, bitter and hard – like rowan berries – attractive to and spread by birds. With the rise of the Tien Shan range and the spread of the Gobi dessert, however, a genetic pool was isolated and the fruit started to evolve to appeal to mammals rather than birds. Under the evolutionary pressure of hungry bears, donkeys and wild pigs – eager for succulent fruit and tending to select the sweeter and juicier examples – apples developed into their modern form.
These fruit were as appealing to humans as to the other mammals. With the rise of civilisation in the nearby “fertile crescent”, we took over the story of the apple, carrying it with us as we traded and developing the necessary skills of grafting, pruning and storing. Ancient Persians, Romans, medieval adventurers and modern growers all contributed to the spread and development of apples as we know them today.
Genetic diversity
The apple has astonishing genetic diversity. The pips of any familiar variety, such as the cox, will grow into trees bearing very different fruit. Every seedling is effectively a new variety of apple. There’s generally some likeness to the parent fruits but also a tendency for the fruit of seedlings to revert toward smaller, more bitter, fruit. Sometimes, however, a highly desirable variety can be born out of accident, or, more often, carefully designed crossing.
To preserve the identity of a particular variety of apple, it must be propagated by grafting or budding. In either case, a small part of the parent tree is taken and grown onto new rootstock, the choice of which determines the size and shape of the tree. In the orchards of Tien Shan, created by selective clearing of the wild fruit forests, every tree is unique. Throughout the rest of the world, there are thousands of hectares of genetically identical trees.
Sporting chances
A further complication is the occasional growth of a branch that bears fruit slightly different to the rest of the tree, often more highly coloured. These “sports“ can also be selected and propagated through grafting, giving us variations on familiar varieties, like the Crimson Cox or Queen Cox.
Apple growing has changed almost beyond recognition in the last few decades, aside from the concentration on ever fewer, transportable and commercially successful varieties. The use of dwarfing rootstocks now allows growers to stock orchards at over 1000 trees an acre, compared to nearer 50 in old orchards. Whilst the trees are nowadays replaced every 10 to 15 years, in the past they might have lasted for more than 50.
Wherever they have been grown, the methods and varieties have been determined by the local geography and culture.
English cookers
Britain as a whole is unusual, in being just about the only country to make a strong and clear distinction between dessert and cooking apples. Certainly in no other country is a cooking apple a major commercial variety – here we have the Bramley’s Seedling. We also have a large range of cider apples, almost all too tannic even for cooking.
The first Bramley was raised by Mary Anne Brailsford around 1810 in her Nottinghamshire garden, coming to recognition almost 40 years later, by which time a butcher by the name of Bramley was living there. The original tree was blown down in the early 1900s, but a branch grew up and still survives. Bramleys were first commercially planted in the 1880s, and became particularly associated with the Wisbech area, where they were traditionally underplanted with gooseberries.
Commercial influences
By the late 19th century, apple growing was becoming increasingly commercialised and orchards were often sited close to railways for transport to the cities. It was only with the coming of the railways that the East became an important area of commercial fruit growing. This pattern can still be discerned on maps of East Anglia. Other quirks of history have affected the geography of apple distribution. Gaymer’s cider works, originally of Banham and later of Attleborough, has left a scattering of small-holders’ orchards in the surrounding area.
East Anglia’s apples
There are many varieties of apple with strong links to places in East Anglia, and many that were first raised here, though very few are still commercially grown. The East of England Apples and Orchards Project (EEAOP), overseen by Martin Skipper and Clare Stimson, is a non-profit-making organisation that seeks to protect and preserve the apples and other orchard fruits of the region. The work of their dedicated volunteers is principally aimed at ensuring the survival of historic varieties that have often dwindled to just a few trees.
At the height of the apple season in October, EEAOP is involved in the running of several “Apple Days”, events celebrating the great fruit. Members of the public are encouraged to come along and learn all about apples, and to bring any fruit from their gardens for identification by EEAOP’s experts. The most popular day, held at Gressenhall, regularly attracts over 1500 visitors, and in 2009 will be held on the 25th October. For complete details of Apple Days, see the websites of EEAOP and Common Ground, originators of the idea.
Identifying apples
Whilst the vast majority of apples belong to a handful of popular varieties, some are more challenging and intriguing. The process of identification for more difficult apples can be long and involved. Since old apple trees often suffer from viruses and other diseases, their fruit might not be typical and a new graft must be grown on to produce clean fruit. The historical records describe fruit of show quality, not the products of long neglected trees.
Once or twice a year, a variety of apple thought lost or even never previously recorded is turned up. Such was the case with Captain Palmer, a variety that Martin Skipper has traced back to a seedling growing in a hedgerow in Gissing, near Diss. The locals recognised the quality of its fruits and took grafts to grow on in their gardens and even for small scale commercial production. Around half a dozen old trees have been identified growing within 5 miles of Gissing, and another 14 or so have since been propagated – enough to secure the variety for the time being.
Lost and found
The list of lost varieties is a long, sad litany, lit only by the glimmer of hope that some of these otherwise vanished apples may yet be discovered growing unknown in a garden, allotment or orchard. The Pineapple Russet was first raised in 1730, and though still extant in 1934, is now thought lost. So too the Norfolk White Stone Pippin, the Monstrous London Pippin, the Ten Shilling Apple, the Transparent Codlin, Gresham Redcoat and Norfolk Paradise – all varieties that were first raised in Norfolk.
EEAOP works to encourage the growing of local varieties wherever possible, whether in gardens, schools, community orchards or commercial orchards. Their website details orchards that can be visited across the region, often created with their advice and support, where local varieties are grown. At Gressenhall’s Roots of Norfolk, many Norfolk varieties have been grafted onto old Bramley trees so that individual trees bear a range of fruit. Thetford’s Forgotten Garden is a magically restored monastic walled garden, with a good complement of young apple trees. Blofield’s Garden Farm is a pick-you-own orchard where the Norfolk varieties have proved enormously popular.
Besides the Apple Days, EEAOP organises other events from time to time. Keep an eye on their website for opportunities to learn how to identify apples or to care for old apple trees. Correct pruning is a skill that is becoming scarce, with many commercial orchards now using a flail, but EEAOP are doing their best to keep it alive in the East. The project also supplies young trees of our regional varieties to those wishing to plant them. The big ambition now is to find a suitable site for a Norfolk orchard, where all the county’s varieties can be preserved, grown and harvested for wider consumption.
As early as 1965, Elspeth Huxley wrote, in Brave new victuals; an inquiry into modern food production:
You cannot sell a blemished apple in the supermarket, but you can sell a tasteless one as long as it is shiny, smooth, even, uniform and bright.
Our climate can’t compete to produce the large, sweet apples that increasingly dominate the global market, but our brisk winters and long summers produce apples of great complexity and subtlety. The apples of the East of England – and elsewhere – deserve rediscovery, recognition and preservation. Thankfully, the East of England Apples and Orchards Project is doing its best to protect our apples.
A version of this article was first published in Suffolk Norfolk Life.
