Since the dawn of mankind, we’ve been kinda obsessed with apples. For tens of thousands of years, apples have been a large part of our diets and our cultures. Blamed for the fall of man in the Garden of Eden, credited as the source of immortality by the Norse Gods, reproved as the cause of the Trojan War, and an all-around great way to get drunk in America since the settlement of Jamestown; as it turns out, apples and people go together like, well, apple butter and smearcase for instance.
Depiction of the original sin by Jan Brueghel de Oude and Peter Paul Rubens.
Norse Goddess Idunn distributing her apples to the Gods to replenish their immortality.
Apples, A Brief History
The ever-popular, mass-produced Red Delicious Apple.
Would a rose by any other name smell as sweet? Yeah, if that name were Apple Pie. Apples are a member of the rose family. DNA analysis shows that apples originated in the mountains of Kazakhstan, where the great ancestor of today’s domesticated apple still grows. How we went from that sour, practically inedible apple to the shiny Red Delicious we know so well is a long history of finely tuned cultivation and cultural impact. Apples express extreme heterozygosity, in short, the apples grown from a seedling won’t be anything like its parents. Reproducing a particular variety of apple requires a process called grafting.
When settlers first came to America they brought apples with them, however, they were hardly cultivated for eating the way they sometimes were in our European ancestral home. The time and resources it took to graft apples for consumption was not an option. To quickly begin preparing for winter, settlers planted apples from seedlings and most were used to make cider; the fermented beverage being a necessity in a world where sanitation was a concern. This method of planting coupled with the fact that almost every American household had its own apple trees lead us to “The Golden Age of American Pomology”, from 1804 to 1904. During this time, interest in new fruit varieties, including trying and reviewing new fruits, was a cultural pass time and a whopping 14,000 varieties of apples were recorded. Read more about the in-depth history of the apple here.
Apples Today and PA Agriculture
There is no butter in Apple Butter.
The National Apple Harvest Festival is an annual event that takes place every October in Arendtsville, PA.
Ready to stock up on apples for your yearly batch of homemade butters, sauces, and ciders? Check out these local orchards and pick yourself a bushel or a peck.
- Strites Orchard, 1000 Strites Rd, Harrisburg, PA 17111
- Paulus Orchard, 522 East Mount Airy Road, Dillsburg PA 17019
- Boyer Nurseries and Orchard, 405 Boyer Nursery Road, Biglerville, PA 17307
- Sycamore Spring orchard, 1901 Thompson, Jonestown, PA 17038
- Hollabaugh Bros. Market, 545 Carlisle Rd, Biglerville PA 17307
- Brown’s Orchard, 8892 Susquehanna Trail South, Loganville, PA 17342