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25 Oct 10 - 03:09 PM (#3015203) Subject: BS: The English Apple From: Richie Black (misused acct, bad email) Yesterday I went for a walk through some beautiful orchards close to my home (permission was not required,the owners are friends of mine). Autumn is such a beautiful time of year and it's apple season. English apples have a rich history extending back through many centuries. Indeed, it was the Romans who first introduced varieties with sweeter and greater taste. The improvements continued in monasteries following the Norman Conquest while further advances occurred after Henry VIII instructed his fruiterer Richard Harris to identify and introduce new varieties from the continent, which were planted in his orchard in Kent. a local grower informed me that there are over 2,300 varieties of dessert and cooking apples and over 100 cider apples. My favourite apple has to be the Egremont Russet. The humble English apple also features in a few folk songs. A beautiful song by Debbie McClatchy has been in my head all day, it's called "Apples in Winter" His love for me then Like apples in winter So sweet to my lips Yet hard to find We walked down the beach Towards the lights of the city Leaving the rest so far behind We stopped at the cove We had once found together It was ours, for ourselves, With none to see And his love for me then Like apples in winter So sweet to my lips Yet hard to find The mists of the night They covered the coastline The sound of the surf pounding below And out in the dark The big lights of the city Giving the night a reddish glow And I held him then And I know in that moment That this was the way it all should be For his love for me then Like apples in winter So sweet to my lips Yet hard to find His love for me now Like peaches in autumn Full, soft and warm And heavy sweet I lay on the beach And I bathe in the sunlight My mind at ease, my comfort complete And I now watch that man Who once was that boy And I know I have done the right thing For his love for me then Like apples in winter So sweet to my lips Yet hard to find To my lips. |
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25 Oct 10 - 03:14 PM (#3015208) Subject: RE: BS: The English Apple From: VirginiaTam This belongs above the line... Not a BS subject because it has a song in it (add more - a list of songs about apples and cider) and the history of apple growing in England. Add in the folk lore and it will be a right fine thread.
-Joe Offer- |
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25 Oct 10 - 03:39 PM (#3015222) Subject: RE: BS: The English Apple From: GUEST,Jon But what is .this Makes a pink juice that is wonderful and sweet. Is UK (Norfolk). |
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25 Oct 10 - 04:04 PM (#3015238) Subject: RE: BS: The English Apple From: GUEST,Peter Laban Not English but my guess is the apple collection/ seedbank of The Irish seedsavers is of interest on this thread. |
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25 Oct 10 - 04:17 PM (#3015249) Subject: RE: BS: The English Apple From: Richard Bridge Government cuts have greatly imperilled the apple gene banks. |
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26 Oct 10 - 02:46 AM (#3015509) Subject: RE: BS: The English Apple From: VirginiaTam EU agriculture policies destroyed whole orchards of British Isles "native" varieties, I am told. So should we start a thread of English songs and stories about apples and cider or start posting here? Come back and direct us Mr. Black. |
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26 Oct 10 - 02:57 AM (#3015512) Subject: RE: BS: The English Apple From: GUEST,Alan Whittle This is a song i wrote which Thatchers cider put on their website. Called Katy Rose. Nice story with that song as well. http://www.bigalwhittle.co.uk/id45.html |
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26 Oct 10 - 03:55 AM (#3015530) Subject: RE: BS: The English Apple From: Richie Black (misused acct, bad email) Excellent idea VT. I would be most grateful if you would consider creating such a thread. Best wishes and enjoy your week. Richard |
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26 Oct 10 - 03:55 AM (#3015531) Subject: RE: BS: The English Apple From: melodeonboy Chomp! I went to two apple festivals at the weekend - chomp! Crunch, suck; one at East Malling Research Station - chomp! - and the other at Brogdale - chomp!. And I've been scoffin' - chomp! - English apples for the last few days (not that I don't eat a lot of them anyway! - chomp!) Has anyone tried the Rubens?- crunch!, burp! What a fantastic taste: a lively, tangy apple with plenty of bottom and a satisfying after taste . I also found some fantastic cookers - crunch! Howgate Wonders! They're absolutely enormous apples - crunch! - green and red in colour! I was told - chomp! - you can eat them if you keep them long enough. I still say - chomp! - you can't beat a Russet for eating and a Bramley for cooking. Now, where did I put those Tydeman Michaelmas Reds? Chomp! |
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26 Oct 10 - 04:26 AM (#3015544) Subject: RE: BS: The English Apple From: GUEST,Patsy One of my favourite apples is the Worcester apple it has a very slight sharp cidery taste and the flesh seems to have a blush to it. It is an undervalued little apple and is great to include in a child's tuck or lunch box. The other favourite of mine is the Russet it has a flavour all of it's own, as soon as those come into the shops I can tell that Christmas is on it's way and of course the Cox's Orange Pippin. The pips in an Orange Pippin should rattle when give the apple a shake. Honestly. |
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26 Oct 10 - 05:02 AM (#3015568) Subject: RE: BS: The English Apple From: theleveller "I still say - chomp! - you can't beat a Russet for eating and a Bramley for cooking." I'd agree about the Bramley (although James Griev is excellent and quite a bit earlier). As for eating, I love Russets but I'm currently chompping on a D'Arcey Spice which is very nice, and for keeping I love Kidd's Orange Red. I grow all of these (and more) in a quite small orchard that I planted 8 years ago and is incredibly productive. The secret to preserving old varieties of apples is to plant some yourself (community orchards anyone?). |
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26 Oct 10 - 05:12 AM (#3015575) Subject: RE: BS: The English Apple From: GUEST,Alan Whittle I recently moved into a house which has a big garden with several very productive apple trees. I've filled the freezer up with apples. Has anyone got a juicer and made apple drink? Which one would you recommend? Anybody got any recipes for an apple drink - preferably non alcoholic. |
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26 Oct 10 - 05:29 AM (#3015581) Subject: RE: BS: The English Apple From: John MacKenzie I have 3 apple trees in my garden, an Egremont Russet, a Worcester, and a Howgate Wonder. How nice to see my choice of varieties confirmed by others. Apple Song Lots of varieties mentioned in this song, that I have never heard of, I guess from the pronunciation of Gala, that it's a transatlantic song. |
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26 Oct 10 - 05:57 AM (#3015594) Subject: RE: BS: The English Apple From: GUEST,Peter Laban In my post about the Irish seedsavers I forgot to mention a project done in support of the organisation. Traditional musician Tommy Hayes, one of the directors of the ISS, put together a cycle of traditional music and song around the theme of 'The Apple'. This cycle was performed in Glór in Ennis two years ago by a group of top class musicians and singers and is now available as a DVD from the ISS. |
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26 Oct 10 - 07:18 AM (#3015628) Subject: RE: BS: The English Apple From: Arnie I recall Tundra sang a song about varieties of Kentish apples. At the mention of French Golden Delicious, the audience were encouraged to boo! Can't remember much about the song now although I think that the words 'Oh Good Apple' appeared in the chorus. |
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26 Oct 10 - 07:59 AM (#3015659) Subject: RE: BS: The English Apple From: theleveller The excellent organisation, Common Ground, has been organising Apple Days for some time. They have also published an Apple Source Book, which I can recommend Common Ground |
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26 Oct 10 - 10:27 AM (#3015788) Subject: RE: BS: The English Apple From: GUEST,Jon Do not seem to do too well with planting our own fruit trees here although that old tree who's fruit I linked to just thrives and crops heavily in the bit of field we rent. We do have a young Bramley that looks healthy and a much newer breed - scruptios that are looking OK. The next tree here is not to apple. Got chatting to a really nice chap into fruit trees -orangepippin.com - where I originally emailed wanting to to identify the old apple... things (or I) drift and I mention a disappointment here is a planted by us but in name old gage tree - it only cropped well once and then all the fruit split...We are going to give oullins gage a whirl as a result. |
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26 Oct 10 - 11:36 AM (#3015864) Subject: Lyr Add: Juice-alem From: Snuffy I wrote this for the Shakespeare Mummers to sing at the end of the Apple Play which we perform at Mary Arden's House near Stratford upon Avon in October of most years. Most of the words are William Blake's, but the rest are mine. JUICE-ALEM From the Apple Day Mummers Play 1997 And did those teeth in ancient times crunch upon England's apples green? And was the Bramley apple pie on England's dining tables seen? And did the cider pure and strong pour forth in pints, and quarts and gills? And did the apple bring good health to folks in dark satanic mills? Bring me my Cox of burnished gold; bring me my Worcester, firm and sweet. Bring me my Pippins, new or old; bring me some English fruit to eat. I shall not eat that tasteless pomme, nor shall a French fruit soil my hand, Till English apples rule again in England's green and pleasant land. |
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26 Oct 10 - 12:21 PM (#3015924) Subject: RE: BS: The English Apple From: VirginiaTam Along the A12 (both directions) from Chelmsford to Ipswich a colleague has reported loads of apple and peach trees in full fruit. Evidently grown from cast away fruit over the years. Anyone else report seeing these wild trees on their highways and byways? |
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26 Oct 10 - 12:59 PM (#3015967) Subject: RE: BS: The English Apple From: John MacKenzie Bud and blossom, bud and blossom, bud and bloom and bear. So we may have plenty of cider all next year Apples, and in capfuls and in bushel bags and all, and the cider running out,of every gutter hole. |
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26 Oct 10 - 01:00 PM (#3015970) Subject: RE: BS: The English Apple From: John MacKenzie Oh and BTW. in spite of the thread title, my apples are Scottish, in location if not in origin anyway :) |
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26 Oct 10 - 02:17 PM (#3016047) Subject: RE: BS: The English Apple From: Richard Bridge I believe the Brogdale http://www.brogdale.org/ collection of apple genotypes has already been much reduced by funding cuts and is under further threat as a result of con-dem insanity. Melodeonboy even your capitalisation on the public purse (as last discussed in the back garden of the Good Intent) won't enable you to enjoy apples that have become extinct thanks to the evils of capitalism. |
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26 Oct 10 - 02:19 PM (#3016048) Subject: RE: BS: The English Apple From: VirginiaTam pples, cherries, hops and women - Folk songs from Kent volume 2 I have started a list of all the apple songs, tunes, snippets of ryhme relating to apples on mudcat and beginning of google search. If I can keep myself focussed on it. May do a table, Title, author/writer, hyperlink to poem, song etc. 85 found so far A Little More Cider All Around The Green Apple Tree Allen Apple (song about customs associated with peeling and throwing the peel over your shoulder) Apple Blossom (The White Stripes) Apple Blossoms Apple Cider Reconstitution (Rod Stewart) Apple Day Song Apple Jack Apple Maggot Quarantine Round Apple Of My Eye Apple Of My Eye Apple on a Tree Apple Picker's Reel Apple Praities Apple Pressing Apple Song- Chanson Du Cidre Apple Sugar Cider (Facing New York) Apple Tree Wassail Apples and Honey (The Macaroons) Apples in Winter Apples On The Lilac Tree Apples and Orange (Pink Floyd) Applesauce Appleseed John (New Christy Minstrals) Bert's Apple Crumble (The Quick) Burst Ye Apple Buds Cardboard Apples Cherry Pink And Apple Blossom White Cider (Chaos UK) Cider For Me Cider I Up Landlord Cider Man (Dirty Bird) Cider Woman (Man's Ruin) Cindy Comfort Me With Apples Cottage Garden Trees Craobh Nan Ubhal (Tree Of Apples) Cy's been drinking cider Dead Dog Cider Do you Love an Apple Don't Sit Under The Apple Tree With Any Else But Me Down By The Blooming Apple Tree Drink Cider From a Lemon (Feeder) Drink Up Thy Cider Golden Apples of the Sun Good Apple, She's My Heart's Delight (Bob Kenward) Hard Cider Song Hoodening Song I Am A Cider Drinker I Love An Apple I Love A Pear Ida Sweet As Apple Cider Ida, Sweet As Apple Cider I'll Be With You In Apple Blossom Time In The Shade Of The Old Apple Tree IN The Shade Of The Old Apple Tree In The Shade Of The Old Apple Tree Jesus Christ The Apple Tree June Apple Linden Lea Little Green Apples Lyda Saffer's Apple Pie Men From the Valley of the Apple Pie Neath The Crust Of The Old Apple Pie Old Apple Tree Old Apple Tree In The Orchard Red Apple Falls (Smog) Red Apple Juice Red Apple Juice Ripest Apples / Rattle On The Stovepipe Shade Of The Old Apple Tree Shoo Fly Pie And Apple Pan Dowdy Sipping Cider Through A Straw Solon Shingle And His Great Apple-Sass Case Sweet Cider Time When You Were Mine The Apple's Song The Harrison Yankee Doodle The Ripest Of Apples The Sour Apple Tree Under The Old Apple Tree Up To The Apple Boughs Down In The Clover Wandering Angus (Golden Apples Of The Sun) / Song of Wandering Angus Wassail Lovely Apple Tree When It's Apple-Picking Time In Annapolis Valley Where The Apple Praties Grow Woozy with Cider (James Yorkston) |
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26 Oct 10 - 05:53 PM (#3016239) Subject: RE: BS: The English Apple From: melodeonboy "I believe the Brogdale http://www.brogdale.org/ collection of apple genotypes has already been much reduced by funding cuts and is under further threat as a result of con-dem insanity." Given the changes that have taken place over the past couple of years or so at Brogdale, e.g. the commercialisation of the main visitors' area, I suspect that you're right, Richard. Last year I paid £7 to enter the cherry festival so that I could... buy cherries! The entrance fee at last weekend's apple festival was £8. I bought the apples I wanted in the outside area and decided not to pay £8 in order to then buy £6 worth of apples! My "capitalisation" on the public purse may well be more modest than you'd imagined! :) |
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26 Oct 10 - 06:54 PM (#3016289) Subject: RE: BS: The English Apple From: Richard Bridge That wasn't what you were saying in the Good Intent - defending your right as capitalist landlord to have your tenants' rents paid in full by the state whereas owner occupiers even of modest properties - you know the one I particularly refer to - cannot even claim full mortgage interest much less the capital element (even if on full relevant benefits). Indeed I seem to remember you defending the landlord as "offering a public service" rather than as most perceive him as a leech. |
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27 Oct 10 - 11:43 AM (#3016819) Subject: RE: BS: The English Apple From: John MacKenzie Had an Egremont Russet with my lunch today, courtesy of Morrisons, yum yum. |
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27 Oct 10 - 11:54 AM (#3016830) Subject: RE: BS: The English Apple From: Will Fly I have a Crawley Beauty tree in my garden. This is an old Sussex apple - a cross between a crisp eater and a sweet cooker. The fruit makes wonderful crumbles and pies and apple cake. There's an annual apple weekend (just gone) at Middle Farm (at Firle in Sussex) where apples are pressed and juice is sold, and where visitors can bring their own apples to be pressed. Middle Farm is also the home of the English Cider Centre, with barrels and bottles of all sorts of cider from all over the country for sampling and for sale. There's an old orchard down the road which, many years ago, had a huge variety of apples being grown and for sale. There was a winter apple howling - great fun - and the then owners kindly let walkers stroll unhindered through the orchard fields. It was sold a few years ago and the current incomer owners have let the orchard go to weed and built fences and erected "Keep Out" notices everywhere. and so the countryside changes... |
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27 Oct 10 - 12:13 PM (#3016846) Subject: RE: BS: The English Apple From: Sooz I love James Grieve (for eating not cooking) but I haven't seen any for years. Mike is a Russet man and we have Bramleys in the garden - anybody want some? |
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27 Oct 10 - 01:18 PM (#3016939) Subject: RE: BS: The English Apple From: GUEST,Jon On JG, I wrongly thought old apple might have been one but apparently shape is wrong. If I remember rightly, that (JG) one is good 3 ways? Early cooker Eater Juicer. --- ours does make that but seems to be something else. |
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27 Oct 10 - 01:20 PM (#3016941) Subject: RE: BS: The English Apple From: GUEST,Alan Whittle 'I love James Grieve ....' he speaks well of you, Sooz. |
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28 Oct 10 - 06:06 AM (#3017556) Subject: RE: BS: The English Apple From: GUEST,Patsy Sometimes eating apples can be alright for cooking. If I want to do an alternative to apple sauce I roast a couple of apple quarters that have a bit of a blush to them alongside roast pork. It goes together really well and not too sweet to have with meat. Eating apples are great in an apple cake with just a little bit of cinnamon and served with custard. |
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28 Oct 10 - 03:45 PM (#3017950) Subject: RE: BS: The English Apple From: Mrs.Duck In the garden where I grew up we had 2 apple trees. one was a Bramley and the other was a Lord Lambourne, a smallish rosy apple with very white flesh. The Bramley didn't do well but the eater was so prolific we had apples stored everywhere and used to swap with neighbours pears and gooseberries. We had loganberry bushes too and my favourite desert was apple and loganberry crumble. Yum! |
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28 Oct 10 - 07:35 PM (#3018098) Subject: RE: BS: The English Apple From: Edthefolkie Song about apple varieties - "Say Goodbye" by Steve Ashley (on his Everyday Lives CD) |
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28 Oct 10 - 07:52 PM (#3018116) Subject: RE: BS: The English Apple From: maeve We had an interesting apple variety thread going for a while, here: "Your Favorite Antique Apple" thread |
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28 Oct 10 - 08:00 PM (#3018122) Subject: RE: BS: The English Apple From: maeve A friend sent me a link to this a little while ago. I haven't seen it referenced here, though I may have missed it: "Ancient orchards restored to save fruit and wildlife" - BBC News "The National Trust and Natural England effort follows a 60% decline in ancient orchards in England since the 1950s. Some 27 orchards have been restored and replanted and 12 new ones created, with some 2,200 trees planted..." |
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29 Oct 10 - 08:58 AM (#3018433) Subject: RE: BS: The English Apple From: I don't know Good crop of Charles Ross this year & Worcester & Darcy spice(always pick these on bonfire night). These are only young trees 4 years old. This year added conference pear also have 4 year old Vitoria Plum & English Greengage. Father in law has the Egermont Russet, Coxes Orange Pippin, Laxon Superb & Brambly, so we get a lovely supply of english apples all winter. |
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29 Oct 10 - 09:36 AM (#3018465) Subject: RE: BS: The English Apple From: theleveller "I love James Grieve (for eating not cooking) but I haven't seen any for years." It's always the first of my apples - we always end up with more than we know what to do with. |
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29 Oct 10 - 12:27 PM (#3018598) Subject: RE: BS: The English Apple From: GUEST,Jon Think I read once the JG also has something else in common with our thing. It's not a good keeper and bruises easily and is therefore not really good for the supermarket shelf. Which according to my thinking atm may be why you might not see them - unless you are the grower. |
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29 Oct 10 - 02:12 PM (#3018709) Subject: RE: BS: The English Apple From: Herga Kitty Today's cryptic crossword in the Independent (UK) incorporated various apples - and you had to solve 5 down to realise that ("Jobs concern? A place found in training (5)")! I haven't quite finished it yet... Kitty |
