[Sca-cooks] Finding "period" Apples

[Barbara Benson]

Greetings,

I believe that the good gentle that originally replied to this post was
confusing the Pink Lady Apple with the Lady Apple. The Lady Apple is most
likely within our period of study and is most definitly French.

If you are interested in Planting an apple tree that will produce period
apples you should check the following link:
http://www.applenursery.com/
They have at least 4 varietys that should be acceptable.

In one of my Gardening Books "The Medieval Garden" there is a reference to
documentation that shows that there were at least sixteen varieties of
apples and pears grown in England during the thirteenth century. A specific
reference is sited of Eleanor of Castile sending to Paris for grafts of the
"Blancdurel" apple to be grown in the royal garden at King's Langley in
1280. (She also sent for cherry wine and brie - the lady had good taste).
This had to be done because apples (and pears) do not reproduce true to form
from seed. Each seed in every apple is genetically different, and if you
were to plant 10 seeds all from the same apple - once they matured and if
they bore fruit, all of trees would give very different fruits. And most of
them would be inedible, fit only for cider and not for eating.

This was known early on in history and the art of grafting is an ancient
one. The good thing for us in all of this, is if we can actually find trees
that claim a specific date they should bear fruit identical (giving
allowance for dirt and climate) to the original tree that was deemed worthy
to "clone" by grafting. The bad thing for us is the fact that in the quest
for sweetness, predictability and conformity we (ie: the american corporate
farmer) have created mealy, characterless apples.

Probably more about apples than you really wanted to know.

Glad Tidings,
Serena da Riva

<snip>


> Pink Lady apples were developed in Australia and are very very recent; ie.
last 5-10 years.
>
> Kiriel
>