APPLES KING OF THE FRUITS
I admit to being an apple fan, particularly of McIntoshes. No breakfast orange juice for me – apple juice all the way – and there are few things better on a cold winter evening than a mug of hot apple cider!
Apples originated in Central Asia but by 1,500 BC they reached as far as Europe, where they were grown by Egyptians, Romans, Greeks, and Etruscans. The first apples cultivated in Canada were by French settlers in what is now Nova Scotia’s Annapolis Valley, in the early 1600s. Orchards can be found today in most parts of Canada, producing a variety of different apple species.
Apples were a prevalent crop in Northumberland County, Ontario, where I grew up. They were lunchbox staples, handy snacks for children, used in baked desserts (no community supper was complete without an ample supply of apple pies), cooked into apple sauce, stewed, or pressed into juice and cider. Apples also can be dried or frozen for off-season use: warm apple pie or crumble/crisp can sure finish off a meal in fine fashion!
The boys of our hamlet had an unconventional use for wild apples: apple fights! My father built a sturdy treehouse in our backyard, which I, my brother and friends turned into a “fort” with grated windows, a lookout/firing platform on the roof, and a pull-up ladder through a boltable hatch. Inside was a large bin always full of “ammo” from several wild apple trees in the immediate area. Saturdays, or after school, often involved manning the fort ready to repel “enemies” sneaking through the neighbouring yards and fields “on the attack”. When the attackers were in range, they would be met with a hail of hard, inedible projectiles – fire which was returned enthusiastically. Sieges could go on for hours, and ended when ammo ran out, a meal call came, or darkness arrived. Perhaps surprisingly, all of us survived these battles relatively unscathed!
Apple fights are long in my youthful past; today I just eat apples and enjoy them in their various cooked forms.
So, here’s to the apple: what I consider the “King of Fruits”!
By: Don Willcock, dwillcock@peterborough.ca
705-743-5180
www.peterboroughmuseumandarchives.ca
