Two years ago, in Apples Worth Shouting About, I wrote about the financial difficulties of commercial apple growing and suggested that orchard fruit was an aspect of food production that is definitely ripe for a people’s takeover. A people’s takeover sounds very revolutionary, but for me I took this route whenever I found I could no longer buy an ingredient. I won’t limit my choice to what a supermarket decides to stock and over time, I have either produced things myself or hunted down one of the few remaining producers.
In those two years things have only got worse for commercial growers and that’s even before the recent disastrous budget. Charlton Orchards, who I mentioned in my blog, have decided to retire and although the business is for sale, they are doubtful that a buyer will continue growing fruit. Apparently, the cost of storage is likely to be a stumbling block. I have known two generations of the Small family, and they have been a fount of knowledge on every aspect of apple growing. At least June Small’s comprehensive research into Somerset varieties is documented. The loss of Charlton Orchards stand at markets throughout Somerset has been keenly felt this season, and there is little alternative the few decent greengrocers for fruit were also supplied by them.
Thank goodness we have our own orchard as well as a Community Orchard within the village. It hasn’t been a great harvest this year, but I still have sufficient apples in store to last me through the winter. A cool shed or garage is sufficient for this although for how long the apples will store depends largely on how cold a winter we have. A fridge is necessary if you also want to store pears. Of course, in the past people used all manner of ways to preserve some of the orchard harvest, as do I. I don’t make my own cider, because Somerset is home to several artisan cider makers and although turning apple juice into cider is relatively easy, making something you really enjoy drinking is a definite skill. In November the last of the cider is still being made, but the rest of the harvest is over for this year. In our Community Orchard we always treat Apple Day, which falls on 21st October, as the last day for picking before the winter storms arrive. Actually, this year the first named storm of the season, Storm Ashley, arrived that very weekend, almost scuppering our Apple Day, which we held on the Sunday afternoon, but the storm abated just in time. As the orchard is a traditional one, i.e. with full height trees, ladders and apple pickers are necessary to reach the higher branches and if the fruit is to be stored, it has to be picked with care as any bruising will quickly cause the apple to rot, which quickly spreads. So, any apples that have been dropped are instead juiced. Freshly pressed apple juice is a revelation if you have never experienced it, and the juicing process is also greatly enjoyed by children. However, if you want to store the juice it has to be pasteurized, and we have the equipment for doing this. Apples for juicing must be free of visible bruises (so the just dropped apples should be fine, but if you are making cider the fermentation process destroys the bacteria, which is why cider apples were traditionally left to fall before being pressed.
Many of the villagers who attended Apple Day had other plans for the apples they took home. Making apple sauce for freezing was a common plan as well as desserts such as crumble, apple cake or baked apple. Windfalls were gathered for much of this immediate consumption, but I enjoyed the sharing of views about which apples were best for baking, an Apple Charlotte or mincemeat. Our orchard has a dozen Bramley Seedling trees but only one other cooker – Catshead. It may be only one tree, but its presence helped prompt a lot of the discussion as many people knew of no other cooker but a Bramley, a consequence of the commercial growers having concentrated production into just a few of the over 2000 varieties native to the UK. Catshead, which dates bake to 1629, has a drier, less acidic flesh than a Bramley, which makes it less prone to collapse when baked and also, it was agreed, is better in mincemeat as a Bramley is too wet.
Often people bring along a fruit from their own garden which they need help in identifying. This is easy if I have identified it for the previous homeowner and Charlton Orchards have previously helped when I am at a loss although my own skills in this have grown over the years. This year I have finally identified a variety growing in my mother-in-law’s garden as Peasgood’s Nonsuch, it is a red (or crimson) variant, which is why I think it had previously eluded identification but is apparently a recognised mutation which has been known since 1931. It is predominantly a cooking apple but of quite moderate acidity, which makes it perfect in salads.
One of the massive advantages of growing your own orchard fruit is that you choose varieties for flavour rather than the those that are favoured for other commercial reasons . I was reading an account of an Apple Tasting held at a Bristol Apple Day this year which had included some supermarket apples within the tasting. The organiser of the tasting was sick of hearing that Pink Lady is the UK’s favourite apple when the competition is between such a limited range, so he wanted to see how they fared against the heritage flavours. Unanimously, the tasters at this Apple Day found the supermarket ones distinctly inferior in flavour. Their top three votes went to John Standish (I’ve never heard of this one before but apparently it originated in Berkshire in 1873), Ashmead’s Kernel and Winston.
Spend some time tasting heritage varieties at events such as Apple Days, especially those that originated in your area as they will often be well suited to the soil and climate. You will, I presume, be growing your fruit without chemicals, unlike supermarket apples which have been sprayed numerous (up to 20) times during their growing period to ensure the perfect uniform appearance that supermarkets expect. I find these fruits quite creepy to look at, but from the number of times I was asked this year whether an apple was ok, because of some very minor blemish, it is clear children find these unsprayed apples equally unsettling!
You will probably need to order heritage varieties online from a specialist nursery as garden centres tend to just be the horticultural offshoot of supermarkets. For most gardens, a half-standard tree is likely to be the most suitable in size, and these will fruit sooner than traditional full standards as well as being more accessible for picking and pruning. Think carefully about when and how you are most likely to eat apples. There is a lot of other fruit around in the early season, August, and the apples that appear then have a very brief picking and eating window, so my choice of tree for this period would not be an apple but a damson. Modern varieties, such as Merryweather, have been crossed with plums to produce a greater ratio of fruit to stone, but they have nothing of the traditional rich damson flavour. Granted, they can be eaten straight from the tree whereas a proper damson will quickly dry your mouth as well as providing little flesh, but these old types are the ones you wat for cooking. With these I make Damson Cheese (similar to the Spanish quince paste Membrillo). In Dorothy Hartley’s wonderful book Food in England she describes how this, along with Apple Cheese, feature in Christmas dessert …
Apple Butter…in its stiffest form this was sometimes called Apple Cheese. Then it was almost candied, and turned out as a dessert dish, at Christmas, apple cheese was set at one end of the table, amber golden, and garnished with hazel nuts and whipped cream, and Damson cheese, ruby dark, garnished with white almonds, and with port wine poured over, at the other end of the table. It was made in all country houses at windfall time. The best was made of one type of apple, but mixed apples, of all sorts, with a quince or two, made a delectable apple butter.
I have included a recipe below.
September marks mid-season for apples and many of the dual-purpose apples, that is those that are first used for cooking but later ripen sufficiently to eat. In Somerset, Tom Putt was described as the cottager’s apple because if you only had space for one tree this would be it. It has three uses being considered in these parts principally as a cider apple (what you would do with the fallers), I use it for cooking – it makes a firm purée, but older locals remember it fondly for eating. Whilst Tom Putt is the Somerset/Dorset example of a dual-purpose apple there are many others. James Grieve is always regarded as a cooking apple in its native Scotland but grown in the south it progresses from this to become a good eating apple by the end of the month. Another example, which I have already mentioned above, is Peasgood’s Nonsuch and Charles Ross another. If you are looking for a pure dessert apple, I think the best for September is Lord Lambourne although Sunset, a modern replacement for Cox’s Orange Pippin, is also a good September apple. Although it is notoriously biennial in its cropping, it is difficult to beat a Blenheim Orange for flavour, and this is also great for cooking before it reaches full ripeness. If you are planting an orchard rather than just a couple of trees in the garden, you can afford to have separate varieties for cooking and eating but even the sharpest, Bramley’s Seedling if left to ripen on the tree will eventually be sweet enough for eating, or at least for drinking as juice. Britain is the only country to have bred varieties specifically for cooking but as people are cooking less frequently, they are less popular, and few people can name any variety other than Bramley. Here are a few: Annie Elizabeth, Howgate Wonder, Catshead, Dumelow’s Seedling (aka Wellington) and Newton Wonder. All of these will store well throughout the winter.
October is the month for harvesting apples for storing, and the late season apples will require some time in store to complete their ripening. Bear this in mind when choosing what varieties to grow. Ashmead’s Kernel is often described as the connoisseur’s apple for it wonderfully complex flavour, with a touch of pear drop to it, but you won’t get that flavour until at least mid-November. This is the only tree I have two of in my orchard because it is the one that I hope to eat until around the end of January. The Russet group of apples is the main one for winter eating and there are more than the commercial Egremont Russet to consider, such as Rosemary’s Russet or Brownlees Russet and spicy flavours can be found in the very late season dessert apples such as Cornish Gillyflower and D’Arcy Spice.
As I recommend varieties, I am conscious that we have well over 2000 to choose from, and preserving this diversity is important, so please check out as many local varieties as you can. Any ripe apple eaten straight from the tree will probably taste far better than one that was picked immature and then kept in a gas regulated environment. When taken out of this environment they tend not to complete their ripening in a normal manner.
The winter is the time to plant a tree, provided the ground is not frozen, so start your People’s Takeover by ordering one now!
Recipes
Fruit Cheese
Fruit cheeses use a large amount of fruit for a relatively small yield, but they can be made from the pulp left from jelly-making, thus making them more economical.
Damsons make the very best cheese and quince cheese is also very good but it can be made from almost any fruit including apples as recommended by Dorothy Hartley.. The cheese should be potted in small, straight sided jars or ramekins, from which it can easily be turned out whole and then served in slices. The English have most often eaten fruit cheese as a dessert, or with scones, but the astringent flavour of damsons or quince makes them more suited to accompany a savoury food, such as cheese or game.
Damson Cheese
1 kg damsons
water
granulated sugar
Wash the damsons and put them in an earthenware dish with a tablespoon of water. Cover the dish and place in a very slow oven overnight to soften.
Pass the softened fruit through a fine nylon sieve. You can also add some of the kernels from the cracked stones.
Weigh the purée and put in a large saucepan with an equal weight of sugar. Heat gently until the sugar has dissolved and then turn the heat up to boil. Continue cooking, stirring frequently, until the cheese is very thick, with no surplus moisture. The mixture should leave the sides of the pan and when a wooden spoon is drawn across the surface it should leave a distinct line.
A smear of glycerine inside the ramekins or moulds will help them turn out easily. The pots should be thoroughly cleaned and warm before you pour in the fruit cheese. Seal with a wax disc whilst still hot and then cover with a lid or cellophane cover when cool.
Apple Cheese – chop the washed apples roughly without removing the core and pips, they will add pectin and will be removed when the cooked pulp is sieved. Add cinnamon sticks and a couple of cloves and a squeeze of lemon juice. Cook gently until soft enough to sieve then measure the sieved purée to determine the sugar needed (ml = gr) and proceed as above.
Mincemeat
Homemade mincemeat is so much better than shop bought but this comes down to the quality of the ingredients. I like to use freshly grated suet (which nowadays has to be ordered) and always hand cut whole caps of candied citrus peel (which I also have to order). I try to make it in October so that is has time to mature as most mince pies seem to be eaten before Christmas rather than during. It also makes a great filling for baked apples and any remaining can be combined with apple to make a sort of strudel.
Makes 4½-5 lb
½ lb cooking apples (Not Bramley, they are too wet, but something like Catshead or Dumelow’s Seedliing) minced or coarsely grated
½ lb currants
½ lb raisins
½ lb sultanas
4 oz natural glace cherries
4 oz citrus peel, chopped
4 oz shelled walnuts (optional)
8 oz grated fresh suet
12 oz demerara sugar
2 level tsps mixed spice
4 fl oz brandy (preferably Somerset Cider Brandy)
Mix all the ingredients in a large mixing bowl, cover and leave for 2 days, stirring twice a day. Put into clean sterile jars. If you are intending to keep the mincemeat for a long-time seal them as you would jam.
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