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Wednesday, October 19, 2011

Apple picking

We completely failed to go apple picking last year - I don't know what happened.  I mean, for one thing it is a classic New England Fall activity, and for another I love apples.  Perhaps I was worried about the inferiority of American apples (I do worry about this, quite a lot - if there's one thing Britain does incomparably well it is apples)... who knows.  Anyway, I got really excited about apples this year, partly to do with the discovery of the Roxbury Russet - an old American variety... from Boston (I like russets).

Did a bit of research (thanks Greg) and found that they had russets at a few farms in the neighbourhood.  Rang them up and found none for picking but some for buying.  So on Sunday afternoon we took ourselves off to Dowse orchards in Sherborn (only half an hour out of Boston).  It was a buy a bag ($21 for medium size) and fill it job, we ended up with quite a well-packed bag.

We picked a mixture of Macoun, Idared (from Idaho), McIntosh, Empire (from New York), Cortland, Rome Beauty (a cooker), and a little green one that might have been a Rhode Island Greenling but I forget.  All slight variations on shiny and red except the green ones.  We met the farmer, who was really nice.  S has just got all excited about apples and so was asking about the root stock etc (S: 'are they on the M9 rootstock?', Farmer Dowse: 'No, M5 actually').  He told us how they used to have a whole orchard of the green ones but they were eaten by deer and now they have just one tree.  He also told us where all the apple varieties came from (all American) - the names seemed suddenly obviously connected e.g. Empire from NY, etc.  And he pointed us in the direction of the Rome Beauty, which weren't signposted, but are apparently a cooker.  Looking forward to those.  S was eating an apple while they were talking - he didn't seem to mind.  The McIntosh were a very pretty deep purplish red (and not too big - American apples are usually so massive), and the Idared have some pretty red flesh under the skin.
We bought some russets from the farm stand on the way out.  Now have masses of apples, woop.  On first taste the russets weren't as good as the ones we got in Canada (and seem to be a different variety?).  Think they need to sit for a week or so to ripen up - have laid them out at home, we'll see.
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