Juicy Apple Stories

§ Apples have existed for the length of recorded history, believed to have originated in the Caucasus. The people of that region are commonly considered the ancestors of most of the peoples of modern Europe, Persia, Afghan and India – and apparently took apples along with them as they migrated.

§ Apples’ fortunes waxed and waned throughout history. Cultivation and enjoyment of apples was an essential part of civilized life during the Persian Empire, grown as much for their aesthetic pleasures as for good food. The Greeks acquired the Persian affinity for apples when they assumed dominance in the third century B.C. Later, the food customs and horticultural skills acquired from the Persians and Greeks migrated with the epicurean Romans westward into Europe, rising to the level of both art and science.

§ As the Roman Empire declined, however, so did apple growing for a time. In fact, many of the varieties and techniques would have been lost had it not been for the monastic orcharding traditions of the Christian church through the twelfth century. In the East, fruit growing was saved and actually expanded by the rise of Islam, the tenets of which encouraged botany.

§ Apple growing, for both food and spectacle, arose again during the fifteenth-century Italian renaissance. Contributing to this revival was the advent of cooking with sugar, and a decline of earlier religious concerns. France and England followed suit, and fruit remained king in Europe well into the 1800s.

§ European settlers of the Americas brought with them their English customs and favorite fruits, much favored over the native crab apple. The first American orchard was planted around 1625 by William Blackstone on Boston’s Beacon Hill. The first governor of Massachusetts Bay Colony, William Endicott, was a distinguished orchardist. Well-known American apple orchardists include George Washington and Thomas Jefferson.

For the Record

§ The Lady or Api apple, a variety still grown today, is believed to be one of the oldest varieties on record, documented as far back as the first century A.D.

§ The oldest apple recipe on record, for Diced Pork and Matian Apples, comes from De Re Coquinaria ("On Cookery"), dating from the third century and attributed to a gourmand named Apicius, who lived two centuries before.

§ The story that Newton discovered the law of gravity after watching an apple fall from a tree is probably backwards, thought to have evolved from his having used the apple’s fall to illustrate the pull of gravity.

Apples in Religion

§ Although the fruit is not actually named or described in the Bible, apples are commonly regarded as the forbidden fruit of the Tree of Knowledge in the Garden of Eden. This smudge on the apple’s reputation may be undeserving, however, as archeological evidence indicates that the apple was unknown in the Middle East at the time the Book of Genesis was written.

§ During the Jewish celebration of Rosh Hashanah, apple slices are dipped in honey and eaten in hopes for a sweet new year. A traditional food of Passover is Haroset, a mixture of apple, nuts, win and spices, representing the bricks and mortar the Children of Israel were forced to use to build for their captors during their captivity in Egypt.

Apples in Mythology

§ The apple appears throughout history as a symbol of love. Aphrodite, goddess of love and marriage, was frequently represented holding an apple. The princess Atalanta lost a foot race, and her maidenhood, because she stopped to pick up Aphrodite’s apples lobbed in her path by her suitor, Hippomanias.

§ The apple also appears as a symbol of the sun’s life-giving warmth in many cultures’ legends. Apple trees were sacred to the sun god Apollo; in fact, the name Apollo comes from the same root as the modern English word apple. The Celts revered the then-unknown Britain as a happy kingdom of the sun called the Isle of Apples, or Avalon, and it was here than King Arthur supposedly went to spend eternity.

Apples and Love

§ Happy newlyweds in the seventh century B.C. might have shared an apple as a symbol of their marriage and hopes for a fruitful union.

§ The modern tradition of tossing rice at the happy couple succeeds an ancient practice of throwing apples at weddings – likely to the relief of the newlyweds.

§ The game of apple-bobbing began as a Celtic New Year’s tradition for trying to determine one’s future spouse.

§ An Irish and Scottish custom prescribed throwing an apple peel over one’s shoulder to the ground, where it would form the initial of your lover’s name.

Apples and Health

§ The healthful image of apples probably finds its source in myths in which apples are a token of knowledge and immortality. In one legend, Hercules achieves immortality by eating a sacred apple before submitting to his ritual slaughter. In other myths, apples are associated with the healing gods Apollo, Hercules and Dionysus.

§ The custom of serving fresh fruit, particularly apples, at the end of a meal arose because of digestive qualities attributed to them by such early medical notables as Hypocrites and Galen, the latter a second-century Roman physician.

§ The medieval physician’s bible, the Salerno medical school’s Prescription for Health, taught therapeutic applications of cooking apples for disturbances of the bowels, lungs and nervous system, among other ailments.

§ Apple juice was one of the earliest prescribed antidepressants.

§ Apples’ curative powers were documented by self-proclaimed master surgeon John Gerarde in 1597. Apples were used as treatments for ailments from "a hot stomacke" and inflammations of all types, and as a beauty therapy.

Root Phrases

§ "An apple a day keeps the doctor away:" From an old English advice, "Ate an apfel avore gwain to bed, makes the doctor beg his bread" (eat an apple before going to bed makes the doctor beg his bread).

§ "It is better to give than receive:" Derived from a fourteenth-century saying, "Betere is appel y-yeue than y-ete" (better is the apple you give than you get.)

§ "One bad apple spoils the whole bunch:" First coined by Chaucer as, "the rotten apple injures its neighbors."

§ Paradise: From the Persian pairidaeza, or walled garden, such as the Persian gardens containing apple orchards. Throughout history, depictions of the Garden of Paradise include apple trees.

§ Wassailing: To drink to one’s health, this tradition began as a winter ceremony in which apple trees are dashed with cider to ensure a fruitful harvest.