The golden apples of the sun

[asakiyume]

I've probably used that exact subject line before. Every year around now I go to get some Baldwin apples from Cold Spring Orchard, because they are The Best for pies, and every year, I also pick up some Roxbury Russets (America's oldest apple type) and some beautiful, and delicious, Golden Russets.

This year, probably because of the drought, they are very tiny. Little baby apples--you could eat one in three bites. But as beautiful as ever.

You might mistake them for ripening tomatoes, by their color, or maybe wild persimmons, but no: they are apples.



Next to a mini pumpkin gourd and next to a Baldwin apple, for color and size comparison:

Comments

[roseneko.livejournal.com]

One of my favorite bits of historical trivia: Johnny Appleseed wasn't wandering around the Eastern seaboard planting apple trees for the sake of the fruit, but for the cider. Most of the varieties he planted were tart and high in tannins, the sort that make complex cider flavors. Alas, a number of them have been lost over the years thanks to Prohibition and the decreasing popularity of hard cider in the intervening century...I read an article about one of the folks whose life's work is finding old apple trees with lost cultivars and nursing the seedlings for replanting. Fascinating stuff.

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

That's right! I remember learning that from The Botany of Desire And what a great job, searching out lost cultivars.