[HN Gopher] Tom Brown Is on a Mission to Restore Appalachia's Ra...
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Tom Brown Is on a Mission to Restore Appalachia's Rare and Lost
Apples (2021)
Author : taubek
Score : 38 points
Date : 2022-05-21 13:41 UTC (9 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.southernliving.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.southernliving.com)
| quercusa wrote:
| Be sure to click through to the Atlas Obscura article, which is
| better.
| [deleted]
| raylad wrote:
| So much better!
|
| Can we replace the current link with the Atlas Obscura one?
| That's what this Southern Living article is referencing anyway.
| eggsmediumrare wrote:
| Esopus spitzenburgs and golden russets cover the raw fruit bases
| for me. Lodi is a great early variety for baking. I definitely
| understand the appeal of Honeycrisp, but it is very sad seeing
| old orchards of Macs and galas and empires being ripped down in
| favour of rows of dwarf honeycrisps
| micromacrofoot wrote:
| The variety of apples really is something special that I'm afraid
| we're losing due to mass centralized farming and big box stores.
| There are many varieties of apple you can't really access easily
| unless you want to plant a sapling and wait a few years. If
| you've got enough space for trees, try ordering a couple saplings
| of varieties you've never heard of before, it's like a slow
| little side quest.
|
| Share some with your neighbors and maybe propagate some new trees
| to spread. Maybe your little corner of the world will have a
| special niche apple variety that will outlive you.
| caymanjim wrote:
| It's completely the opposite. A few decades ago the only apples
| you could get anywhere in the US were McIntosh, red delicious
| (which were very much not delicious), golden delicious (same),
| and Granny Smith. They were the only apples that could survive
| the weeks-to-months-long harvest and bulk transport processes.
| Other than Granny Smith, you can't even find those apples in
| stores anymore. Now we've got a dozen varieties in every
| suburban supermarket, and specialty stores have even more
| options.
| ghaff wrote:
| >Other than Granny Smith, you can't even find those apples in
| stores anymore.
|
| Absolutely not true in New England--although I agree with
| your assessment on red delicious and golden delicious in
| particular. McIntoshes aren't great for cooking but they're
| pretty good eating apples--although I don't usually buy them
| my neighbor as quite a few trees of them in her orchard.
| Granny Smiths tend to be my go to for cooking.
| micromacrofoot wrote:
| Which suburbs do you live in? still the same old 5 varieties
| here. I drove for 3-4 hours to get to an orchard that grows a
| variety that used to be a local staple 20 years ago. 30 years
| ago the variety was much greater over here in the mid
| atlantic.
| biotinker wrote:
| McIntosh apples do not keep well, and it's very rare to find
| them significantly out of season. This time of year it would
| be difficult to find anyone with McIntosh available, now or a
| couple decades ago.
|
| They are a very popular apple in the northeastern US, though,
| so if you grew up in that area it's no surprise you found
| them everywhere, for probably ~5 months out of the year.
|
| While it's certainly true that the varieties of apple
| available are much larger now than they were, unfortunately a
| lot of the common varieties nowadays are bred with longevity
| more in mind than flavor, and also have parentage from e.g.
| red delicious and share its distinctive cardboard flavor (in
| my opinion).
| eps wrote:
| Back when I lived in Vancouver (BC), there was an annual apple
| festivatal every fall in the UBC Botanical Gardens. You get to
| see and taste (!) several dozen of varieties and that was quite
| an experience. They also sold a dozen or so non-mainstream
| varieties at the exit, which too was an awesome thing to have.
| Highly recommended if you are in the area... though I must admit
| that apples are my all time favourite fruit, so there is a bit of
| bias.
|
| Edit - found a link: https://botanicalgarden.ubc.ca/apple-
| festival/
| ggcdn wrote:
| A bit of UBC apple trivia which I thought was neat is that the
| trees in front of UBC Triumf facility are descendants of
| perhaps the most famous apple tree of all, the one Sir Isaac
| Newton sat under while composing his theory of gravity.
|
| https://news.ubc.ca/2007/06/07/archive-ubcreports-2007-07jun...
| krunchasaurus wrote:
| I've been to that same festival, and agree, it was a great
| event.
|
| The tasting tent with over a hundred different varieties was an
| amazing experience.
| quercusa wrote:
| If you have the opportunity, check out the Esopus Spitzenburg
| apple (discovered in the Hudson River valley). It's really tasty
| - aromatic and tart.
| SaintGhurka wrote:
| I think I'll pick up a Spitzenburg to plant next winter. Trees
| of Antiquity has them.
|
| Thanks for the suggestion.
|
| "The king of all apples"
|
| https://www.treesofantiquity.com/collections/apple-trees/pro...
| s5300 wrote:
| Friendly reminder that a lot of Appalachia's apple planting
| (think Johnny Appleseed) was actually for booze/other fermented
| products.
|
| I thought it was weird that this article didn't mention it at
| all, but upon searching for a source the first article that
| popped up was also about this man (Tom) & talked about it [0]
|
| Probably has to do with the nature of the websites demographic
| that they exclude it.
|
| This reminds me of another person I'm familiar with though, who
| is preserving hundreds of tomato species - Dan at Rainbow
| Tomato's Garden [1]
|
| [0]https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/heritage-
| appalachian-a...
|
| [1]https://montco.today/2021/08/rainbow-tomatoes-garden-east-
| gr...
| biotinker wrote:
| Cider was once the primary fermented alcoholic drink consumed
| in the US, but the industry was wiped out by prohibition, and
| afterwards beer took over.
|
| This directly led to the situation we have currently, where in
| the US, "cider" usually refers to cloudy apple juice, and
| specifically "hard cider" refers to alcoholic, fermented juice,
| while in the rest of the world, "cider" only refers to the
| alcoholic drink.
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(page generated 2022-05-21 23:01 UTC)