We've been getting all sorts of crazy heirloom orchard apples lately in our farm delivery boxes. After a recent box had five varieties of apple inside, I decided to set them up and take a picture, and then label them and showcase them here.
One reason is that I wanted to unpack the term "heirloom orchard" apple. There has been talk among people I know about what actually constitutes an heirloom apple. This conversation coupled with an internal desire to figure out my own favorite apple variety were the main motivators here.
One apple that I first had while living in New York and instantly fell for, as do most who ever try one, was a honeycrisp. With oversized cells that burst with a sweet and tart juice with every crunching bite, it's easy to see the popularity. The honeycrisp is awesome.
But it was created in a lab in Minnesota in the '60s. It was an accidental seedling that was set for the rubbish bin before being salvaged. It was patented in the '80s and finally brought to the market commercially in the '90s.
It would seem funny to me choose this as my favorite apple without even a quick glance through the ranks of "heirloom varieties".
The following picture shows and labels the five varieties we got that Thursday night in alphabetical order:
After doing some research, the entire idea of heirloom variety is worthy of discussion.
On our trip to the apple orchard and pumpkin patch a few weeks ago with Cassius, we picked a big bag full of pippin apples. The russeting around the stem was awesome, but such a thing turns off most consumers at markets these days. The pippin was developed in the late 1600s on Long Island and became a favorite of the colonists. Both George Washington and Thomas Jefferson loved them, and Jefferson even lamented in a letter from Paris that they had no apples that compared to their pippin.
The ones we picked were all awesome, and we didn't even wait for them to be really good, as their flavor develops while in storage.
In any case, the pippin would likely count as heirloom, while the honeycrisp usually represents the newer order.
So, from the picture above:
The Arkansas Black was developed in the mid 1800s around Bentonville, Arkansas. Apparently in the apple connoisseur world it is either loved or hated, with no middle ground. Most likely it is a cultivar that started as a winesap seedling. I find the flesh dense and crisp with a little sweetness, but a dry sweetness. I can't imagine anyone hating it. I think it's safe to call it an heirloom variety, and since the winesap is claimed as one of its ancestors, that's probably also safe to claim as heirloom.
The Braeburn, I was surprised to learn, was discovered in 1952 on Moran's orchard in New Zealand. Thought to be a cross between a Lady Hamilton and a Granny Smith, I find them delicious. Tart and juicy with a creeping sweetness, this apple is easy to overlook. Heirloom? Only slightly older than Honeycrisp, so I'd guess not.
Then the Cameo...I really like the cameo. It's easy eating, similar in tart and sweet to the Braeburn but different in crunch style, it probably doesn't qualify as heirloom because it was discovered in 1987 (!!) on a guy---Darrel Caudle's---property in Washington state.
Granny Smith apples, I just learned, were cultivated by Maria Ann Smith in Australia in 1868. She died two years later, but some of the local apple farmers extensively planted her cultivars, the lovely tart greenies they called 'Granny Smith'. This variety is likely ranked second on global scale cultivation, and has done many varieties like the pippin harm, in that they are not russeted, are larger, and more intense in flavor.
The last one is the oldest variety on this list, the Winesap. It looks like it was known during the colonial period, and possibly came from New Jersey. Like the pippin, it stores better than most other apples, but in today's age of refrigeration that is less necessary. I found the flavor in the same dry-sweet and crisp category as the Arkansas Black, but with less intensity.
Like the pippin and winesap, we were lucky enough to get our hands on some Orleans Reinettes, a French variety that was popular back in France in the 1770s and is being grown stateside recently in the rush to preserve these old apples. They were awesome. Less awesome were the Calville Blanc's, which was a bummer because the apple was cultivated in France in the 1600s. The ones we've been getting were a little mushy.
The following is a list of otherwise hard to get apples that we've been getting this season in our boxes, to go along with the nine varieties mentioned above that have at one time or another, been arriving in our box (pippin, honeycrisp, Arkansas Black, Braeburn, cameo, granny smith, winesap, Orleans Reinette, and Calville Blanc):
- King David (introduced 1893, Washington County, Arkansas)
- Mutsu (1948, Mutsu Provence, Japan)
- Golden Russet (early 19th century, upstate NY)
- Gravenstein (17th century or earlier)
- Grimes Golden (1832, Virginia)
- Jonagold (1953, upstate NY)
- Rome Beauties (early 19 century, Ohio)
- Gala (1934, New Zealand)
- Fuji (1932, from the research labs in Fujisaki, Japan)
I'm not trying to make the case for how we should define our concepts of heirloom botanicals. I just love apples and love nerdy rabbit-hole diving, and love seeing the information on the 18 (!!) different kinds of apples shipped to our apartment over the last two months all in one place.
Also, I wanted to talk about something else.
If you're down for a revolution, I'm ready to put in the work. Otherwise...apples!
My favorite apple exists as a list that is ever fluid. But three varieties will always occupy spaces:
- Granny Smith
- Honeycrisp
- Pippin
And maybe the King Davis or Orleans Reinette can be added, but their season is short. Possible the Cameo, too...or the Braeburn...that first gigantic Mutsu I had was pretty goddamn fantastic also...
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