Before the Mac, Vintage Apples
Farmers and Stores Push Thousands of Heirloom
Varieties, Rediscovering the Duchess of Oldenburg
By ANNE MARIE CHAKER
Roxbury Russet has a nutty flavor. Strawberry
Chenango smells like roses. Cornish Gilliflower is reminiscent of clove.
Farmers and chefs treat them like fine wine, but
these are apples"heritage" or "heirloom"
varieties that were common on American tables as
far back as colonial times but today are rarely
tasted. Now, a number of orchards and apple
historians are growing these old varieties again
and promoting them to restaurants, distributors
and grocers. The apples are showing up in ciders and next to pork roasts.
"Heirloom" is a potent food-marketing buzzword,
helping once-forgotten plant varieties and even
animal breeds command premium prices. Heirloom
apples were regionally popular for generations
but have ceased to be cultivated commercially.
From the 1950s on, mass-production farming
favored reliable apples that could stand up to
shipping, and stores have been dominated by
apples from fewer than a dozen familiar types,
including McIntosh, Red Delicious, Fuji and Granny Smith.
The heirlooms, in contrast, with freckles,
stripes and other visual peculiarities, buck the
modern idea of what an apple looks like. Often
priced in the $3.99-a-pound range, they can cost
up to twice as much as common apple varieties.
They are coming back strong nonetheless, as the
increasing numbers of people who cook and eat at
home seek out novel ingredients.
Unusual appearance can be a problem at some
more-commercial venues. "The heirloom apples look
different. The russeting, how they're
multicolorthose are normally no-nos and cause
for rejection in other varieties," says Michael
Rozyne, co-director of the Canton, Mass.,
nonprofit Red Tomato, which works to get local
farm produce into mainstream supermarkets. "We
can't sell them very well unless we create the
romance and the story and the history that goes with it," he adds.
Mainstay varieties make up as much as 90% of
apples sold in grocery stores, says Gary Nabhan,
professor at the University of Arizona who
founded Renewing America's Food Traditions, an
organization of nonprofits that aims to restore
endangered crop species. This year, focusing on
apples, the group has listed more than 600
forgotten and seldom-seen types that it wants to
bring back, whether through promotional events or
free distribution of grafting material.
Prof. Nabhan, who studies farming and culture,
says 15,000 different apples were once grown and
eaten in the U.S. Today, he says just one-fifth
that number are available from nurseries and
other sources, and most are at risk of being lost
to commerce or disappearing altogether.
Apple orchards were once fixtures of American
communities, typically growing varieties that
were well-adapted to local conditions. With the
consolidation of farming and the advent of better
ways to ship, many small orchards disappeared in
the decades after World War II. Slow Food USA's
catalog of 200 endangered foods, "The U.S. Ark of
Taste," lists seven endangered heirloom apple
varieties, including Granite Beauty and the Newtown Pippin.
Today, the U.S. apple-industry is concentrated
mainly in Washington and New York states. Modern
varieties are bred to be tough travelers, easily
packed and good-looking on store shelves. The
upshot, some experts say, is that the modern
apple has sacrificed a lot of flavor. In
contrast, heirloom applesonce popular for
pressing into cider, or for their ability to hold
up in baking and cookinghave a range of flavors,
from tart to sweet to spicy and aromatic.
At a recent vintage-apple tasting organized by
Monticello, Thomas Jefferson's historic estate in
Charlottesville, Va., 59 people sampled and rated
several hard-to-find varieties. Jenny Heap, an
Arlington, Va., marketing manager, noted that the
Yellow Bellflower has "notes of cilantro." Andrea
Reusing , chef and owner of the Lantern
Restaurant in Chapel Hill, N.C., uses some of
these rare apples, sourced from a nearby orchard,
because the unusual flavors are fun to pair with
other foods. Earlier this month, her menu
featured a dish of roast pork and the English
Golden Harvey apple, a small fruit Ms. Reusing
says has a "spicy, plummy, cardamom" taste.
Lost Nation Orchard, in Groveton, N.H., is
planted with 80 types of apples, many of them
heirlooms; it sells them on weekends in fall.
Among the varieties owner Michael Phillips grows
is the Tolman Sweet, an old baking apple that he
says reminds him of banana, and Pink Pearl, an
inside-out apple (the skin is yellow and the flesh is pink).
People can buy a $50 orchard share for the
season, including three pecks (about 30 pounds)
of any apple he grows and a bonus half-peck of
the Duchess of Oldenburg, a Russian apple that
came to the U.S. in the 19th century. It's "an
incredible summer apple," known for its excellence in pies, Mr. Phillips says.
Kings Super Markets Inc., a specialty grocery
chain in New Jersey, has begun carrying heirloom
apples. They've been off to a slow start, says
Paul Kneeland, vice president of produce. Regular
apples "might sell at a rate of three to one"
compared with the heirlooms, he says, which cost
about twice as much per pound. Chatham
Marketplace, a food co-op in Pittsboro, N.C.,
posts short histories for some of its vintage
varieties, provided by the grower, Raven Rocks
Orchard of Blowing Rock, N.C. "With every type,
they send a sign that says where it originated,
what part of the area it was grown in, around
when it was first talked about," says produce manager David Dellea.
[NAFEX] Heirloom apples promoted,
Betty Mayfield, 10/30/2010