Craving for Variety Boosts Apple Revival

Joan Morgan sliced a wedge from a Cox’s Orange Pippin, tasted with the flair of a connoisseur sampling a fine wine and rendered her verdict:

“Perfectly balanced with a subtle harmony of complex flavors on top. Nuts, pineapple, pears, spices--you can’t quite put your finger on it.”

Morgan, an apple historian and writer, was browsing among aromatic pyramids of 55 varieties at the Brogdale Horticultural Trust on a fall afternoon.

She and other admirers of the fruit had choices--ranging from the snack-sized Katy to the Annie Elizabeth, a two-hander for cooking--in hues from bold crimson, emerald and orange to mottled yellow, gold and beige.

The apple is on the rise again in England. Boosters see it as a symbol of resistance to the uniformity enforced by supermarkets, directives of the European Community and ubiquitous American fast food.

The Agriculture Ministry has given up its search for a “perfect apple” to compete with the French Golden Delicious, and “there is hope that we can get people interested in the diversity of English apples,” ministry spokeswoman Sharon Atkinson said.

Common Ground, which fights the spread of sameness in Britain, has adopted the apple as a talisman of variety. On Oct. 21, it sponsored Apple Day across the country, with apple picking and bobbing, picnics in orchards and cider tastings.

About two-thirds of Britain’s orchards have been destroyed; Devon has lost 90% since 1965. By promoting apples, Common Ground hopes to protect Britain’s heritage and culture, said Sue Clifford, who speaks for the group.

“After all, the apple and all the fruits that we have ramify right the way through our lives,” she said, “so recipes, songs, the way in which people know about a place are all related to the sorts of crops that grow there.

“To grow and be able to buy the Devonshire Quarrenden in Devon, the Blenheim Orange in Woodstock and the Galloway in the Borders reinforces local culture.”

The Brogdale orchard is fundamental to the apple revival.

On 150 acres in Kent, “the garden of England,” the trust grows 2,300 varieties of apples, 550 kinds of pears, 350 types of plums and 220 of cherries--plus currants, gooseberries, nuts, medlars and quinces.

British apple varieties span time from Decio, which dates from AD 450 and grew in the gardens of Roman villas, to the recently developed Crispin, Jonagold, Gala, Elstar and Fiestas.

From Abbondanza to Zweigelts Zinsahaler, there are apples for eating, cooking, baking, cider, jellies and drying.

Some names are melodious--Carlisle Codlin, D’Arcy Spice, Golden Spire, Shakespeare, Worcester Pearmain, Lass O’Gowrie, Lord Lambourne--but there also are the Blood Turk, Greasy Pippin, Hog’s Snout and Topsy.

The Knobby Russet is hideous, brown and bumpy, with a woody taste, but remains in the gene bank nonetheless.

Brogdale maintains a register of 6,000 varieties that have been grown in Britain. Just 100 are now grown commercially, and only nine are common. Bramley Seedlings for cooking and Cox’s Orange Pippins for eating are the best sellers.

More than 60% of the British apple market has been lost to imports such as the Washington Red Delicious, South African Granny Smith, New Zealand Braeburn and French Golden Delicious, the most popular apple in Britain.

The Brogdale collection aims to be a “shop window” between growers and consumers and also to turn a profit, said director David Pennell.

In 1989, the government of former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher cut off subsidies, leaving Brogdale as vulnerable as the Prince of Wales apple, an English variety now found only in Belgium.

Prince Charles, the real prince of Wales, saved the orchard through his duchy of Cornwall, which put up 75% of the purchase price.

Some villages still practice the ancient fertility rite of “wassailing.” On Twelfth Night, revelers gather beneath the largest tree in an orchard, fire rifles into its branches to ward off evil spirits, and pour hard cider on the roots to ensure a good harvest.

Most of the cider, however, goes down the revelers’ throats.