I love an apple.
If asked what my favorite kind is, I’d have to say, Cameo.
Then Ginger Gold. Then probably Envy.
I like a sweet apple.
They are the apple of my eye.
Recently, I learned that Granny Smith apples are the third most popular apples in America. They also seem to be the most popular in the world.
To that, I say, “Blech.” I’ve never met a Granny Smith I liked. Nothing against grannies. Or even the Smiths. But put together, and those apples simply don’t appeal to me.
First of all, they are the wrong color. They are bright green. Generally, if you come across a green “anything” in the fruit world, it means it isn’t quite ripe. Like green bananas. Or green berries. And when something isn’t ripe, it will probably taste sour. Hence, the problem with the Granny Smith. If I want sour, I will eat a lemon. But for me? An apple must taste like the sweet nectar from the gods, that it is.
So yeah. Ask me how I really feel. I often wondered why the are called Granny Smiths. Well, those tart apple imposters are named for a real person.
It seems that the apple dates back to 1868 in Australia. A woman named Maria Ann Smith had an orchard with her husband. Just for the record, she was known locally as Granny Smith. She had been testing out various kinds of crab apples to find the best ones for cooking. When she’d get a baddie, she’d toss that core out of her window. **This is a key part of the story, so I’ll repeat it.** She was testing crab apples. She tossed the rejects out the window.
Those bad apples sprouted new seedlings, and she began propagating the best of those. And that is how the Granny Smith apple was born. Blech. Crap apple rejects.
Sadly, after Smith passed away, other farmers kept her strain of apple going. They called it Smith’s Seedling, then Granny Smith’s Seedling and finally just Granny Smith apples. Bad apples produced in quantity.
Here’s another note. The top apple producers around the world are China, the United States, Turkey, Poland, and Italy. Apples account for 50 percent of international deciduous fruit tree production. Australia is not on that list.
And something else about Australia? It has the most animals with the most deadly venom. The box jellyfish, marbled cone snail, blue-ringed octopus, and stonefish are in the top ten most venomous animals of the world. They all live in Australia, right alongside the Granny Smith seedlings.
How do you like them apples?
Okay, you get the picture. They are not the apple of my eye.
But so many of those apples are so delicious. They are the best fruit if you ask me. Near perfect. I’m pretty sure that’s why God did the whole apple in the garden thing. Although, I’d have to say his choice of the snake might have been off-putting to a lot of people. A cute little otter, or a sloth, would have been better.
Anyway, back to them apples. The science of apple growing is called pomology. And it needs its own science, as there are more than 2,500 varieties of apples grown in the United States. They come in all shades of red, green, and yellow, so they go with almost any outfit.
Finally? The average person eats 65 apples a year. I eat about 65 apples in ten days, give or take a few.
I’m not sure what that makes me on the statistical math curve, but there I am.
Some of the best advice also comes from apples. Like. Don’t upset the apple cart.
And when it comes to blogs. I suppose I don’t mind if you read others. But in the end, “don’t sit under the apple tree with anyone else but me.”
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Every thought is a seed. If you plant crab apples, don’t count on harvesting Golden Delicious.
— Bill Meyer
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Anyone can cut an apple open and count the number of seeds. But, who can look at a single seed and count the trees and apples?
— Dottie Walters
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Surely the apple is the noblest of fruits.
— Henry David Thoreau
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A Granny no one could love. Well. Not me, at least.
