More than a fruit-bowl-filler
Celebrating the apple
Scottish Borders, Early October, 2023
October is the scent of harvested apples. That sweet tart funk would fill our old shed where my mother built floating storage racks to keep our Bramleys, James Grieve and Cox through the winter. I spy those varieties now in amongst dozens of others; a display that puts supermarket ‘choice’ into perspective.
This Apple Day is held by Borders Organic Gardeners to celebrate the most unglamorous of fruits. But I’d defy anyone not to be wowed by the diversity on display.
The long table in the polytunnel at Woodside Garden Centre is almost completely covered in reds, yellows, oranges, some shiny, others not, strange shapes and grotesque sizes. The weak sun still manages to draw up a heady perfume that builds under the polythene, smelling more like wine than apples.
People bring mystery varieties to be identified and are formally introduced to the fruit they may have been eating for years. Suddenly, the filling for their crumble or accompaniment to their muesli has a name and a history; Irish peach, Jupiter, John Downie, Hawthornden, Kerry pippin, Kidd’s Orange Red. It is touching to think that, once upon a time, each variety on this table was admired, chosen, bred and finessed, and stamped with a name to mark the bond between fruit and eater. Whoever recognised the unique flavour or appearance, the keeping or cooking qualities, they may be long gone. But their creation lives on, carrying a thread of their story to be seen, tasted and celebrated today.
BOG holds an apple day each autumn, mirrored by their joyous scrum of a potato day in Spring*. The apple and the potato must be two of the most unjustly overlooked foods that we eat, forming the structural bulk of our fruit bowls and the bland staple of many a meal. They are cheap and abundant year round in the shops, but the diversity that BOG celebrates at both these events puts the average supermarket selection of 3, possibly 4, varieties to shame. There is a world of flavour that we have chosen to forget in favour of simple sweetness or resilience to long distance shipping.
Once upon a time, their ease of production made apples a prized part of every garden in the Borders. Today, owning an orchard might sound grand, but in the past it was considered necessary for a thriving household. The many abbeys here would have grown and bred apples and pears, including the Melrose White apple and the famous Jedhart Pear, now only grown in private gardens and at Mary Queen of Scots house in Jedburgh. The monks would have known the value of their fruit as a food source, something to trade, but mostly - I’d suggest - as a way to make a reviving tipple.
At a table holding a small hand-turned apple press I was handed a small cup of deep amber liquid, fresh pressed from two apple varieties I had never heard of. When it comes to soft drinks, I am seldom whelmed. The majority are bland or tooth achingly sweet, so I rarely venture beyond water. But this juice would have rivalled an excellent sherry in intensity and aroma. I sipped it slowly under the awning as a mizzle set in and observed attention being drawn by a huge tray of wonky toffee apples at the next stall. People and wasps hovered around them, considering whether to risk the sticky treats. A lady in her eighties deliberated for a long time before choosing her apple. The toffee was growing soft in the damp weather, and long hairlike strings of sugar twisted through the air as she picked it up. She walked from the stall wearing the smile of a child, her gaze on some fixed space in the distant past.
In food obsessed nations such as Italy or France, town centres are still frequently gridlocked by loud and elaborate celebrations honouring a single fruit, wild plant, cheese or mushroom. It saddens me that these outpourings of admiration for food probably seem weird and eccentric to us here in Scotland. Shared adulation of food seems to be shunned due to suspicions of sinful pleasure or foodie elitism. But occasions such as Apple Day** are far from being just about gastronomic indulgence. These are precious opportunities to acknowledge and applaud the skill, determination and hard work of producers. It is a chance to marvel at the intricacy of nature, to revive and broaden our palates, to be deliciously reminded of the connection between people, earth, and the food we eat.
* I have never seen so many frenzied potato enthusiasts in one place