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  • From: "Tradingpost" <tradingpost@lobo.net>
  • To: livingontheland@lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: [Livingontheland] Bringing Back Heirloom Apples
  • Date: Mon, 17 Jan 2011 16:16:31 -0700


Bringing Back Heirloom Apples
By Erika Freeman, "Forgotten Fruits," September/October 2010
What you can do to find and savor these forgotten fruits.
http://www.eatingwell.com/food_news_origins/seasonal_local/bringing_back_heirloom_apples

Red Delicious, Granny Smith, McIntosh: these names are so familiar because
only 11 varieties represent 90 percent of all apples sold in chain grocery
stores. Few of us know Black Oxford, a purple-black apple with crisp white
flesh; or Roxbury Russet, which dates back to the early 1600s and has a
guava-nectar taste; or Rhode Island Greening, traced by legend to the Garden
of Eden. More than 15,000 apple varieties have been grown and named in North
America, but today’s orchard keepers only have access to 3,000 (the loss of
diversity is ascribed to the decline of independent nurseries). Renewing
America’s Food Traditions (RAFT) Alliance has declared 2010 the year of the
heirloom apple. RAFT has targeted 90 varieties in each of the three regions
with highest-surviving apple diversity—the Great Lakes, New England and
Appalachia—to restore. Bringing back heritage apples can require some
creativity: John Bunker of RAFT put up “Wanted” posters in counties where the
“lost apples” once grew. Thus alerted, old-timers have helped relocate
obsolete apples. To find an heirloom apple orchard, download Forgotten Fruits
Manual and Manifesto - APPLES from raftalliance.org.
~~~~~~~~~~

paul tradingpost@lobo.net






  • [Livingontheland] Bringing Back Heirloom Apples, Tradingpost, 01/17/2011

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