 Common name/true name:
Apple – Malus domestica Description of look and flavor:
Growing 5-12 meters tall and crowning broadly, apple trees are the prototypical example of a tree. They flower white, tinged pink, and the fruit is a beautiful orb with smooth skin. The color variations are enormous due to the large number of apple varieties, but they are usually some combination of yellow, red, and green. The core of the fruit, when sliced on the horizontal, is a star pattern extending the seeds out at the points of the star. The flesh is much more firm than most fruits and apples are prized for their crunch. Fuji is one of the crunchiest varieties and also one of the sweetest. The more tart apples are used in baking or for cider. Growth period/ harvest –
Harvest time for apples goes all through the fall, but apples store so well and for so long that they are available until mid to late spring. Nutritional info –
Apples are very hydrating, have 8% of your daily vitamin C and 14 grams of carbohydrates per 100 grams. Apples contain no cholesterol and lots of fiber, which is a key element in the further reduction of existing cholesterol. Apples are also crammed full of antioxidants and are credited with reducing the risks of colon, prostate, and lung cancers. Other uses –
Apples make their way into just about everything culinary from juice, to dessert, all the way to meat dishes. Half an apple might also help to unscrew a broken light bulb, although a potato works best. Just be sure that the light is turned off! History –
Apple trees may have been the first tree cultivated by man, going back as far as recorded history takes us. It has been said that it was the forbidden fruit in the Garden of Eden. A good apple was hard to resist then and just as hard to resist now.
Linnaeus, father of binomial nomenclature, first categorized apples into the genus Pyrus along with pears and quinces. It wasn’t a terrible call, but Phillip Miller recognized the error and gave apples their own separate genus. Myths and Legends –
Irish Folklore says that if an apple is peeled in one continuous ribbon and thrown behind a girl’s shoulder, it will land in the shape of her future husband’s initials. I assume they mean in cursive.
Men in Ancient Greece would toss an apple to a woman as a way to propose marriage. If she caught the apple then she accepted. If she didn’t catch it, he was sad, humiliated, and now without an apple. Interesting facts/ misnomers -
More than 7500 cultivars of apples exist.
In 2002 the world produced 45 million tons of apples. Half were from China and about 7.5% were U.S. grown.
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