October 12, 2020 • 54 mins
This popular tree fruit has been the subject of myths and legends throughout the ages – possibly due to linguistic confusion. Anney and Lauren explore the juicy history and snaking science of the apple.
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Speaker 1 (00:08):
Hello, I'm welcome to Savor production of I Heart Radio.
I'm Annie Reese and I'm Lauren Vogelbaum. And today we're
talking about apples, yes, which is a big topic. Yeah,
big enough that uh when I suggested it, um, I
was like, Annie, are you is this okay? Is this
(00:29):
okay for this week? And I was like, maybe it's
like we can do something different, Like we don't have
to right now we must. Yeah, we've been. We've been
putting it off a while because it is a big topic,
just you know, lots of lots of ground to cover.
I still feel like I could have I could have
kept adding to this outline forever. It could have just
(00:52):
been eternal apple, Yes, yes, Apple eternal. I also realized
that as I was doing this, there are so many
sayings throughout history that have apple in them, and I
didn't even remember some. As we were about to record,
I forgot about apples to oranges, which I feel like
(01:13):
would be pretty I don't know, I understand it's probably
long time it's been around. I guess I'm trying to say, oh, yeah,
I have not looked it up. Of all the animal
logical things that I looked up for this one that
was not one of them. So I it's gonna have
to be a mystery to us as well as you
unless you know where that came from, and then let
(01:35):
us know. Yeah, yeah, and then let us know. Um.
So I have done some apple picking in my day.
I grew up near l J, Georgia, which is like
the apple center of of Georgia, and it was a
field trip we would go on when I was in
elementary school. We go to allergy into the apple orchards.
(01:58):
But no, I even fear because I have a tooth,
a fake tooth, and told me very seriously that I
had to avoid apples, carrots and ice. Now I can
slice it up, oh, but not a whole apple. Who
wants to deal with that hassle? Oh see, I don't.
(02:19):
I don't like eating the whole apples because of the
texture against your teeth, like like the snap of the
skin and then like the pipe of the fruit is
really upsetting to me when it's a whole apple situation.
So yeah, I always slice an apple. If I'm going
to eat one, I slice it. This is why I
don't eat more apples. Do you like them in general?
(02:42):
I do? I do? Um? I get cravings for apples
and then I'm like, oh darn, slice it, and then
it just sits there until I eventually am like, this
is too soft to eat out of hand. I need
to like make like a crumble or something like that,
which I would I did, uh last week or this week,
(03:02):
and time is meaningless now. I don't know recently, recently
enough that I still have some in my fridge and
I ate some with some yogurt while we were preparing
this outline. So that sounds lovely. It was lovely. Uh. Yeah,
I've I've never been apple picking to my to my dismay,
I've lived in in Georgia so close to him for
so long. Um, I keep trying to go every fall,
(03:24):
and it has not worked out so far. But um,
I do have early memories of a family reunion that
took place at an apple orchard, um my mom's side
of the family, somewhere up in Ohio. It would have been.
I do think it's funny that apple picking has kind
of become synonymous with a bad date. That makes that
makes me laugh, is it? Yeah? I mean I've frequently
(03:45):
seen it as a joke of like, oh no, go
app I've never seen that stereotype. I love it though.
That's that's really I would definitely being the I would
be the person that's like we're going apple picking. Yeah right, Um,
so we did choose this because, um, it's fall. Uh,
(04:07):
it's Halloween adjacent, like if you think about bobbing for apples,
and of course like the story of snow White, the
poisoned apple, yeah, or the apple in the in the Witch. Yes, yes,
I just watched a horror movie where the big plot
twist in the end was apples, like planting apple seeds
and somebody throw the tree out of that body and
(04:29):
then you eat the apple and you get like use
oh the whole thing. Okay, it was a whole thing. Uh.
And we recently talked to Dan Fassion of The Sportful
about the Cosmic Crisp, which is a new apple hitting
the market, which, yeah, until we talked to him about
that and really realized how many apples you have to
(04:53):
choose from from the store, which, as we're gonna get into,
is actually nothing in the history of apples, but in
the scheme apples, yeah, yeah, but compared to like oranges
or bananas, you do have you know, a handful of
types of apples, and usually somebody's got you got your
favorite types of apples and apples used for cooking and
all kinds of things. It's a whole, it's a whole
(05:15):
commercial apple world, it is. And we have done a
couple of other episodes about apple products before. Yes, we've
done one on cider and apple pie, and I know
for one of those, I think it was apple pie,
but it might have been cider. We really went more
in depth into the story of Johnny Appleseed. Do you
(05:36):
want to get back and give that a listen. We're
going to mention it in here, but not go is
in depth since we've already covered it. Yes. Um. We also,
alongside the apple Pie podcast episode, we did a video
episode with our dear friend Julius skinner Um, who is
a historical colin culinarily historical human person um. You might
(06:00):
recognize her from our episode about Afternoon Tea Um. And
she she helped us or we helped her rather, um
make this this old, old old apple pie recipe with
like whole apples and you stick them in a pie
crust and then you eat them and it's kind of
confusing but delicious. It was really good it was really good.
I think it was difficult to eat, but it was
(06:22):
really good. Yeah. And the reason it was more difficult,
I think it was more difficult to eat because the
smallest apples we could find we're a good deal larger
than the size that they would have been using back
in the day. That's true. Um. I also want to
take this moment as always to mention the apple muffin.
(06:43):
I've brought this up before. If if you're like me
and in your need of something to laugh at, go
look up this clip of the New York government arguing
about the apple right every time. I bring it up,
every single time, and I will continue to do so. Well,
thank you. It's a it's a it's a good and
(07:04):
important reminder. You're welcome. It's a service that I do.
But okay, I guess who should get direct question? Apples?
What are they? Well? An apple is a fruit that
grows on short to midsized deciduous trees a botanical name
(07:24):
malice domestica, that prefer a temperate climate, including a cool winter,
to give the tree time to to lie dormant and
store up nutrients for when flowers and then fruits in
the spring. Those flowers start out kind of pink and
often fade to white, and when they're pollinated, will each
develop a single fruit with this thin, edible, sort of
snappy skin containing a thick layer of varyingly crisp and
(07:48):
juicy flesh, which in turn contains a papery but still
edible core protecting a few small seeds, usually five, sometimes
other numbers. Um. Depending on the variety, the fruits can
re raange from like the size of a cherry to
like the size of a grapefruit. In skin color when ripe,
from green to gold, to red to purple, and in
flesh color from white to cream to blush to crimson.
(08:12):
There are some wild looking varieties of apples out there, y'all. Um.
The trees, by the way, are in the rose family rosicassier,
and they're pretty hardy, but a little bit tricksy because
in order to get the kind of fruit that you want,
you can't just plant a seed from a fruit that
you enjoyed. Um, Like, the resulting tree could carry any
(08:35):
kind of fruit by the time it matures and so um.
So yeah, yeah, you get the fruit that you want
through grafting, which is sort of like botanically Frank and
Stein ing a limb from the tree that you want
onto whatever other apple tree that you've got. Um and apples, yeah,
can range from from sweet and juicy to quite sour
(08:57):
and dry, and anything in between. Really different varieties are
used for eating fresh, cooking and baking both sweet and
savory dishes, and making into vinegar, juice, cider, wine, and
other beverages. Um apples also contain a lot of pectin,
which is like a jellifying kind of fiber. It's it
soaks up a lot of water um, which is super
(09:18):
useful in making like jams and jellies and other products.
And uh yeah, these days, growers use all kinds of
cool agricultural tricks and technologies to get like the most
best fruit out of their orchards. UM, you know, developing
and training trees with that have that have more compact branches, UM,
using machines that allow for easier pruning and picking, using
(09:41):
reflective materials on the ground to like bounce sunlight up
at the bottom of the fruit to encourage like more
even coloration. Wow, I love it nice. You know, I
forgot until we were doing this research, I forgot about
the whole um when you eat an apple, it feels
like you brushed your teeth. Yeah. Yeah, they say that
(10:02):
the fibers in it are good for your teeth, but
I feel like the sugars in it are probably bad
for your teeth. So I don't know. Maybe maybe it
like helps get rid of plaque, but at the same time,
probably still brush your teeth afterwards. Are not Yeah, not
to say don't brush your teeth at all, just eat apples.
So that's not I'm not I'm not a dentist, but
(10:23):
that's not what I'm recommending. No. Two out of two
podcasters agree. What about the nutrition then, uh, well, apples
are are low in calories and high end fiber, with
a small spattering of vitamins and minerals primarily vitamins C
and potassium, and also a pretty good spread of like
stuff what helps your body get stuff done. Um, they're
(10:47):
being investigated for helping reduce heart disease and cancer. Lots
of antioxidant kind of stuff like that. Um, they are
a little bit sugary, so um. You know that they'll
help fill you up, but to keep you going, let's
say pair with a little bit of protein and fat
for a better balanced snack. Oh, I love those ants
on a log. Well, not that that's not what this
is actually a good Halloween treat, not azon a log.
(11:09):
But you can make like a face with an apple
and you put peanut butter in it, like marshmallows for
teeth are raisins for tea. Well, numbers wise, the US
Apple Association, which I love, claims that in two thousand nine,
apple producers turned out thirty million apples. China is the
(11:33):
world's largest producer of apples, followed by the United States.
Uh yeah. China also consumes the most apples, like by far,
like forty percent of the world's total volume of apples,
which for the record is over seventies seven million metric
tons per year worldwide. Um. So that and so like
(11:55):
like we come in second in terms of eating apples,
but like they eat penfold more than we do, like
we like a little less than five percent dared to um,
we also produce ninefold less than they do. So this
wild amounts of apples is what we're talking about. Wow,
(12:18):
I don't think I had a single apple when I
was in China, and that was really for almost a year.
It could have been it could have been a thing
of like I was trying. I was trying all these
new things. I know what those are. I have I
have read that they can be part of New Year's
(12:39):
celebrations because there's a pun involved. I forget which pun now.
I read this and then I didn't write it down.
But that's okay. I believe it. Uh yeah, And I
was there for New Year's but I just didn't maybe
I didn't even make no a mental note of it. Well,
(13:00):
there are a lot varieties of apples. One of the
largest apple orchards in the world, if not the largest,
is the U. S Das Plant Genetics Resources Unit in
New York, which boasts two thousand, five hundred types of
apple from all over. And yeah, like depending on who
you ask, I the number that I saw a lot
(13:21):
was that across the world there are some types of apple.
Um and but I also read that like that, like
there may have been and I'm not sure if this
was like over the course of history or like hidden apples.
I'm not sure, but like as many as like thirty
(13:42):
thousand varieties, so I don't know either way. I mean,
I mean, seven thousand five d apples is still it's
a lot, a bunch of apples. It is. It is,
in fact a bunch of apples. However, fifteen varieties make
up of apples in the US of the apples were consuming.
(14:07):
The delicious variety, which I know gets a lot of hate. Uh,
is the most grown in the United States and the
most consumed. Yeah. Uh. And and that's kind of similar
outside of the United States as well. Um. Only about
twenty to forty varieties of apples are widely commercially produced
(14:28):
around the world. Apples in general are America's second most
popular fruit bananas first, if you're wondering. And the average
American eats about sixteen pounds of apples a year wow,
which is not which is impressive, but it's not globally
impressive because per capita as of Poland, eight pounds of
(14:53):
apples per person per year. That's forty five kilos UM,
with Turkey and Iran not far behind its seventy three
pounds are about thirty three kilos each DAN. That is
a lot of apples. You were doing a lot more
snacking on apples than I am. I strongly suspect. Uh.
(15:14):
They are, though, the third most grown fruit in the world,
with a global market value a very nearly seventy nine
billion dollars as of twenty nineteen. I keep wanting to
say how about them apples and refraining, and now I'm
telling you so it's almost as bad as saying I
just want to put out there that it's like. I
(15:36):
know you're probably thinking it listeners in the back of
your head. I am too. I'm right there with them.
There you go, but I'm trying to show restraint. Oh gosh, um.
There there are apple festivals across the United States, um
around the world as well. If you've been to one
in your area, please right in and let us know
what that's like. Yes, oh my gosh, yes, I want
(15:59):
to know if they're is a pageant. I want to
know if there's games. I want to know your puns.
I want to know your your foods. Me too. I should.
I never went to the one in l J, but
oh no, Well LJ is sort of it's one of
those small towns that's on a two lane road and
there's always a huge semi and like forts behind you. Yeah,
(16:22):
and it gets packed in the fall. Everybody goes they
want the apples. You gotta go early in the season
or else. That's my word of advice for you, oh
duly noted. Okay, yes, and the apples perhaps the most
well known fruit in the world, particularly for going by
number of depictions and media it's popped up in. Aren't
(16:43):
all around the globe throughout history. Poets from Emily Dickinson
to Robert FoST written about them, and artists like Magreets
have painted them. Clearly, they've been the object of our
imagination for quite a while, m Um, and we are
going to get into the history of that. But first
(17:04):
we're going to take a quick break for a word
from our sponsor, and we're back. Thank you sponsored, Yes,
thank you. So apples are ancient um like large fruiting
precursors may go back nine just seven million years ago.
(17:29):
The seeds spread by these giant animals well by okay,
by by large fruiting, we we mean something like the
size we see today as opposed to the smaller varieties
that were around for a lot of history. Um. And
by giant animals, um they mean human sized or larger
um like like like nine pounds forty kilos and up um,
(17:52):
although they could get quite big like like in the
America's They think that humans and bears and maybe deer.
Maybe some animals simil are two like a mastodon. We're
carrying them around. Um in Africa, humans and other primates, elephants, rhinoceroses,
various types of wild horse, um, stuff like that. So
I'm impressed by like the rhinoceros thing. I'm like, all right, yeah, right,
(18:16):
thanks rhinoceros. Yeah, thank you. We don't think the rhinoceros enough. Uh.
And I also love how the word mega fauna kept
coming up. I'd never heard that word, but I, oh, yeah,
that's it just means yeah, like like weighing more than
ninety pounds forty kilos man, like this huge ass apple,
(18:39):
like big creature. Get well, that's still pretty cool, alright, alright.
The first modern apples are thought to have originated in
Kazakhstan are neighboring regions. Recent research suggests that humans have
been trading wild apple seats for over ten thousand years,
and art from the time indicates domesticated apples might have
(19:02):
been around in southern Europe for at least two thousand years.
The oldest known variety is four thousand years old. Yeah,
the ancient Romans may have cultivated like six different varieties,
which is pretty cool. Um, although overall, yeah, like the
whole domestication process of the apple is still a little
bit unclear. There is a lot of research going into it, uh,
(19:24):
mostly articles that have words like megafauna and yes, yes,
and it's recent research. Yeah, And speaking of some recent
genetic research suggests that our modern apple is a hybrid
of four types of wild apples that probably came together
via trade on the Silk Road. Prior to that, the
ice age had isolated different apple types from each other.
(19:48):
This hybridization resulted in a larger apple, which humans later
selected for through grafting. And there is a whole book
about this, apparently called Fruit of the Sands. Um. It's
by one Robert Spengler. It is currently sitting under my
desk and I have not had a chance to read
it yet, And now I'm really mad at myself. That's
(20:10):
a good title because from that I wouldn't know immediately
it could be any number of things. It also it
also talk does talk about a bunch of other different
different stuff that was being traded around at the time.
But um, but yeah, perhaps perhaps mainly the apple perhaps.
And also I feel like we've mentioned this before in
one of our previous apple adjacent episodes, but apples at
(20:33):
this time, like wild apples, were often very sour and
yeah and probably really a stringent like if yellow ever eaten?
Um uh crab apple yeah, which are the type that
is native to America. Um, They're they're puckery there. It's
like it's like eating like a like a dry lemon. H.
(20:58):
Your facial expression is saying everything you need to me.
It's like a lemon filled with like sand, like a
sand lemon. It's it's a really interesting experience that I definitely.
We had a crab apple tree in my front yard
for a few years when I was growing up, and
it was a really good climbing tree. And every every year,
(21:19):
every year I would be like, oh man, I should
try maybe they'll be different this time. Never Nope. I
appreciate the optimism and hope though. You know, um, sure,
let's call it that. Let's call it optimism and hope.
That's That's what I'm going. Seven year old Lauren was
working off of, Yes, that's what I think. Um. Since
(21:43):
prehistoric times, apples have had this sort of mystique around them.
Wild apples that grew across Europe and Asia were often
viewed as sacred as granters of youth and fertility, particularly
women's fertility. Since apples came in the fall and were
turned into butters and ciders and all kinds of things
to help people get through the winter. Uh, and then
(22:05):
the trees blossom in the spring, many associated the apple
with renewal. Yeah, and perhaps because of this, apples have
featured in stories throughout our history. In Greek mythology, the
Greek goddess Atlanta was able to outrun any suitors until
a wise man tempted her with an apple and she stops.
(22:28):
The Trojan War was kicked off over an argument about
the golden apple, the golden apple of beauty. Yeah, I
totally forgot about the um. If you look at the
story of King Arthur, he was laid to rest in
avalon the quote isle of apples. According to legend, magical
golden apples of immortality gave the Norse gods their powers.
(22:48):
So that's where Thor gets his. He's got a thunder,
But I'm like, isn't it lightning? Though? Anyway, different different
complaint for a different day. Um. In Arabian night, the
magic apple was capable of curing all ailments and diseases. However,
as we've mentioned before, while our modern interpretation of the
(23:09):
forbidden fruit that Eve took a bite out of in
the Garden of Eden Uh is an apple, it's actually
only called fruit in the text. So pretty much every
fruit has been put forth as potential Canada, especially fruits
that would have been growing around this time. I guess
um of when it was written, where it was written,
(23:29):
particularly the fig However, it is true that the apple
is the one that we have culturally seemed to have
settled on in visual depictions, especially more modernly, and this
probably came about in the twelfth century. Historians think it
might have been because the Latin word malice meant both
apple and even by fifteen four at the very least,
(23:54):
an engraving by Albert Durer showed Eve with an apple,
and there was a sixteenth century painting that depicted Adam
and Eve under an apple tree. By the time of
Milton's Paradise Lost in the seventeenth century, the image of
apple with a capital at was pretty much solidified. Yeah
and uh. And part of the confusion about the original
(24:16):
intent there is that for a long time in many
Proto Indo European descendant languages. Um. The words for apple
could refer specifically to an apple or to any kind
of fruit in general. UM, which is also where you
get kind of hilarious compound phrases for different like new
to Europe produce that we're coming in starting with the
(24:39):
age of colonization, um, like a like the apple of
Paradise for the banana, or the pta, the apple of
the Earth for the potato. Yep, yep. That does add
a layer of confusion, for sure. It doesn't help, doesn't help, No,
no history. Yeah, what was trying to mess us up? Now?
(25:04):
As a kid, I loved this movie which I sent
you watched and wasn't very well. I still enjoyed it,
but it wasn't very good called What Lies Beneath, and
it had an apple was like forbidden seduction scene in there.
That really yeah with me as a kid, I'm sure
that that's exactly what was going on in in in
the Witch. Um. Although I although I wondered, yeah, no,
(25:25):
I guess by by that time, by that time, the
apple was pretty much that thing. So good on, good
on it, good on it. The phrase apple of my
eye was first recorded in the ninth century Gregory's pastoral
Care by King Alfred of Wessex. And it actually referred
to the pupil of the like like literally like, not
(25:49):
like figuratively like it was just your people. Yes. At
the time, the people was believed to be this solid,
round object. And of course back then vision was precious.
They were there many ways to improve your vision if
something went yeah. And because of that, as time progress,
the saying came to denote something precious. Uh. I know,
(26:10):
I actually wasn't really sure what that's saying meant until
I did this research. Well, it appeared into the King
James version of the Bible and A Midsummer's Night Dream,
I believe the first time. I I was familiar with
the phrase because of who framed Roger Rabbit. Because because
when he when he thinks that, when when when Roger
the you know, the rabbit thinks that Jessica, his lovely wife,
(26:33):
has has played Pattycake with another man. Um, he goes, No,
She's the light of my life, the apple of my eye,
the cream in my coffee. Now talking about a horror movie,
I saw that once as a kid, Never again, because
it's scared to me so badly. Oh wow, it was.
I was really scared of it as a child too,
but in a way that I enjoyed. Like Christopher Lloyd
(26:55):
really wigged me out in that film, like and I
was used to him. Is like Doc Brown in the
in the Back of the Future movies, So I was like,
why do actors like That? Was one of my first
experiences of like actors play different roles. I mean, what
lies beneath is also that? Yeah, yeah, I actually thought
(27:17):
apple and my I meant like your kid. So I'm
glad I haven't come up with I haven't used it inappropriately.
That would have been really embarrassing, now I know. There
you go. Yeah yeah. Apple trees proliferated across Europe in
the thirteenth century. One of the first known encyclopedia is,
published in fourteen seventy, included an entry on apples INDs
(27:41):
of physician to Queen Elizabeth the First, which, by the way,
she said was the best physician around or something like that,
recommended smelling an apple to recover strengths. That's nice, it's
nice smell um. Around the time, several Shakespeare's works did
mention apples. During the sixteenth century, we get the first
recorded instance of bad apple. It might have been rotten
(28:03):
apple at the time, but uh, and it appeared in
Schaucer's The Canterbury Tales. So many apple phrases. Um, the
original meaning was someone who creates problems for other people,
but many people modernly use it incorrectly that bad behavior
is not reflective of the whole like there's just one
(28:23):
bad apple or whatever, and it doesn't mean that this
whole organization is bad. Yeah. Yeah, because the original meaning
or the original phrase was something to the extent of
one rotten apple spoils the whole barrel rum and many
people use it today to me in the opposite Yes,
and that might be because you'll never believe this. In
(28:46):
nineteen seventy, the Osman Brothers, Yes, they came out with
a hit song called one Bad Apple parentheses, don't spoil
the whole bunch girl, exclamation mark, and history was made.
I like to think that the Osman Brothers were like
(29:07):
specifically throwing down a gauntlet like at Chaucer. Yeah, probably
at the beef of history. We need to know more about.
Yeah yeah, what did Chaucer ever do to you all? Yeah?
Osman Brothers. If someone knows the story behind it, let
us know, we have another apple related phrase, the apple
(29:30):
doesn't fall far from the tree, and that perhaps goes
back is as far as although I saw some really
wide ranging dates for it, um, so it could be
way older, like way way older mysteries history. I'm sure
some version of that saying has been around for a
long time because it just kind of makes sense. It does.
(29:50):
It's it's literal. I mean, apples do not fall far
from their trees. Yes, that is true, and yes that
could have meanings, so it's true. It's true. French traders
(30:11):
brought apple seeds to Canada in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.
Apple trees were brought to Africa in sixteen fifty four
in Australia in seventeen eight. European colonists settling in America
brought apple seeds with them. Yes, they only found crab
apples when they arrived, along with traditions and beliefs around
(30:31):
apples themselves. One of those traditions was one that a
lot of us are probably familiar with, bobbing for apples,
which I have never in my life done, and I
really now it's pretty gross. And I think that in
these like our COVID times, like that's not going to
be a thing for a very long time. Uh. I
(30:54):
always like, even as a child, I was like this
is gross and and damp and like difficult. I have
I have participated in this and like fallfares and elementary school. Yeah,
but I was terrifically unsuccessful. It seems like it would
be hard. It's not easy. It's not, especially when you
(31:17):
have a tiny child jaw yeah. Oh yeah, come on now,
not fair? Well, okay, this this has a great story
behind it. So apparently girls and women back in the
olden times I would secretly mark the apples and put
them in a barrel of water, and then potential matches
(31:40):
were dunk their heads into that water and bite into
the first apple that they could as a way to
see romantic futures. It's like, oh, we should be together.
Um it's the romantic party game colonial American times. Yeah.
Uh And this wasn't the only romantic party game or not,
(32:01):
I guess, not party game but predictor tradition associated with
the apple in New England. After the apple harvest, apples
needed to be peeled for apple butter to last the winter.
Like a lot of apples um, young unattached women would
attempt to peel the apple without breaking the peel and
then toss it over their shoulder and then look to
(32:23):
see what letter the peel formed. Yes, it's supposed to
be the first letter of the name of your future spouse.
Now I have done this, and I've talked about it
before on the show. I've also talked about how I
feel like there's some blenders you just can't get, Like
you're only going to get a CE or maybe a
D or like an eye. Um. Anyway, I don't know
(32:44):
why I'm getting so mad about this. It really depends
on how you peel it though, Like if you if
you just go around the apple, then you're probably pretty limited.
But like if you do some like clever zin shiging,
like you could get like a W or an M
pretty easy. I think you're right. I think you can
rip the system a little bit. Yeah, you can game
(33:04):
this one. Oh wow, that's funny. I hadn't really thought
about that. See when I played it, like you, you
would do that, and then you had to go inside
for like an hour and let it like curl into
whatever it was going to do, always just to see
or maybe a d anyway. Uh. Not only this, Uh.
(33:33):
This connection between the fortune telling abilities of apples and
Halloween goes way back, all the way back to Salween,
the Celtic festival and precursor to our modern Halloween. UM.
And we have talked about this before, but briefly. This
festival usually occurred at the end of October. It was
a celebration of harvest, end of summers, and not just
(33:53):
for the current year, but potentially forever the days start
getting shorter. What are going to do about it? Right? Right?
And there was this fear that maybe it's just irreversible. Um.
So to hopefully prevent that and ensure that spring in
the harvest would return, people would have these huge bonfires, um,
make sacrifices of animals to the gods or leave gifts
(34:18):
of fruits and nuts uh, and hang apples from evercreen trees.
And this allowed for those that had died over the
previous year to pass through the barrier into the underworld, which,
according to what I read, was believed to be pretty thick.
But on this day he would do this. It's it's thinner,
it's thinner. The veil is thinner. You can do the
(34:40):
things you can do the thing people can go through.
But of course that allowed for some perhaps troublesome spirits
to come into our world. Um. It also increased the
power of divination, this thinner veil, so it's believed that
you could you could contact people or see the future
a more easily. Yeah yeah, um so cool Halloween. A
(35:06):
side aside, These early apple orchards in the US did
struggle at first until Europeans shipped over honey bees, in
which I totally forgot about the Yeah. Yeah, the European
honey bees were really important to it. Yeah. A few
shipments followed in the ensuing years, and by the sixteen
forties orchards were doing pretty well. And like we discussed
(35:28):
in our cider episode, a lot of these early apples
did go into cider more for drinking than for eating,
because again they were probably pretty sour, a lot of them. Um. Then,
in sixteen sixty five or sixty six, the Stuff of Science,
the legend Sir Isaac Newton was sitting under a tree
when an apple hit him on the head or perhaps
(35:49):
just fell in front of him, and he came up
with the law of gravity. Infamous story or yes, as
the story goes, Yes, Yes, there was a really funny
dry like I think it was from the Royal Science
whatever that that society is. There's a really funny entry
about well. I thought it was funny. But it was
(36:09):
like Isaac Newton sat there just twiling away the days,
wondering about and then an apple were to fall in
front of him, and it was just I thought it
was funny. In New York, in seventy seven, Robert Prince
set up the very first commercial nursery for apples in
the US up until the Civil War. The owners, which
(36:31):
stayed in family all those years, collected and sold apple
trees from all over the world and and other plants
um During the Revolutionary War, the nursery was considered important
enough for protection by British armed guards. However, M. M.
George Washington wasn't as impressed. After visiting in seventeen eighty nine,
(36:55):
he wrote, I set off from New York about nine
o'clock in my bargs to visit Mr. Prince's fruit gardens
and shrubberies at Flushing. These gardens, except in the number
of young fruit trees, did not answer my expectations. The
shrubs were trifling, and the flowers not numerous. The shrubs
were trifling. I fucking feel that old Diami burn. In
(37:20):
the seventeen eighties, Thomas Jefferson wrote, they have no apples
to compare with our new town pippen. I love the
word pippin. That's a good word. Yeah, more stuff of
a legend. John Chapman a K. Johnny apple Seed went
around with the bag seeds, claiming that good seeds and
not grafting, was the only way to get good apples.
(37:42):
In the late seventeen hundreds early eighteen hundreds. According to
some sources, he dreamt of producing enough apples that no
one would ever go hungry. He went out west, helping
to foster apple orchards. As he went, most of the
apples were too sour for eating, so they did end
up in apple side or apple jack, and because of that,
a lot of these orchards ended up getting burned. With
(38:04):
the temperance movement and prohibition. Uh yeah, there's actually I
know we talked about it in whatever episode where we
talked about Johnny apple Steed. I thought it was not
a real person. So this was shocking to me. Uh,
And there is a lot of out there about him.
A lot of it is probably you know the stuff
of legend, but if you want to know more, there's
a lot out there. In eighteen seventeen, William Cox published
(38:27):
one of the first American works on apples, and the
US had thousands of varieties of apples by the middle
of the eighteen hundreds, more than anywhere else in the world.
Apples made their way out to the Pacific Northwest and
eighteen The Delicious variety of apple originated in eighteen seventy
and an orchard in Iowa. It was a variety that
(38:50):
refused to die, and when the owners sent a sample
to the eighteen nine Louisiana Apple Fair, the president of
Stark Nurseries tried it and dubbed it Delicious and the
name is history. The name is history. Around the same time,
speaking of in Australia, Maria Ann Smith randomly spotted a
(39:11):
seedling in her compost pile that went on to produce
the variety now known as Granny smith Um. The story
goes it was the result of a crab apple tossed
out her window. And apparently there is a huge Granny
Smith festival in Australia. So if anyone's ever been to that,
please please let us know, we see the first written
(39:36):
record of the phrase an apple and egg keeps the
doctor's away, or perhaps it was this version, it's a
apple avore, a game to bed, and you'll make the
doctor Bega's bread. I don't know what that first part means,
but I understand the second bit. If you have an
apple before you go to bed, Um, you'll make the
(39:56):
doctor bega's bread something something. I'm I'm guessing that's what
it means. My excellent uh maneuvering of old English. This
whole thing was a part of rebranding of sorts for
apples in the US after prohibition. Since again, most apples
(40:17):
before that went into hard cider. So this whole it's
healthy eating. Eat this food that we make, please. Yeah.
And another apple tradition might have emerged during this time,
giving an apple to the teacher. Yeah. I forgot about
this too until we were doing this research. Um. During
(40:38):
frontier times, teachers were seen as these moral figures, and
families whose children attended their classes often were responsible for
feeding them. An apple became a popular food to give,
and this stuck around even after this whole we're feeding
the teacher thing went away in ninety nine, being Crosby
released an Apple a Day complete with this line, and
(41:00):
an apple for the teacher will always do the trick
when you don't know your lesson and arithmetic. And we
see this in Pinocchio. Christmas story had it um by
the term apple polisher meant essentially brown noser. Uh, and
the fact that school started in September, coinciding with the
(41:20):
start of apple season might have also played into it. Sure, yeah, sure.
The candied apple was allegedly invented by accident in when Newark,
New Jersey, candy maker William Culb knocked some apples into
candy syrup. Since sugar refineries and apples were plentiful in
that region, candied apples might have become a Halloween staple
(41:43):
soon after that. I'm sure, like that's a great story,
but I'm sure you know, it just kind of makes sense.
When you're coding stuffing candy syrup and you have an
apple sitting there, You're like, huh, what about this? What
about this? By these the US had over ten thousand
varieties of apples. Thanks to inexpensive refrigerated transportation, urbanization, and commercialization,
(42:10):
many of those apple varieties are gone, but a lot
of people a lot of people have been working on
bringing them back and documenting them. Beginning in Maine in
nineteen seventy two, a man named John Bunker, who is
also called the Apple Whisperer uh the Apple Guy, set
out rescuing, rescue rig apple varieties. He estimates he saved
(42:31):
about eighty varieties of apples, and he did this through
all sorts of apple forensics and also with the help
of wanted posters about town like it would. They're so good,
it's like wanted alive. Narragansett apple last scene in New
York County. Exclamation Point originated on the farm of Jacob H.
(42:55):
Harmon Buxton in eighteen seventy three. If you know the
whereabout of this apple, please contact fed Cookee. If you
know the whereabouts of this apple? I love this so much.
And it came with a drawing of the apple. Oh wow, Yes,
it's so good. Um. And He's not the only one
by far. Another such person is Dan Bussey, who in
(43:20):
published The Illustrated History of Apples in the United States
and Canada, which was a collection of seven volumes ranging
each between five hundred and six hundred pages long. Whoa Wow,
documenting over sixteen thousand apple varieties and weighing in thirty
two pounds. Oh, of the apples listed in that book,
(43:41):
in this collection of volumes, only about are still grown today.
This is also an artistic endeavor UM. As of twenty nineteen,
a photographer by the name of William Mullins debuted his
Odd Apples project, which is this series of portraits of
strange varieties of apples. Portraits of apples. Yeah, and just
(44:03):
like really weird, gorgeous like apples that resemble anything from
like a golden potato to a grinning jack lantern, to
a black plum to a pearl. Wow. I don't have
to check that out. Yeah, look up odd Apples. It's
it's pretty spectacular. UM. Also, as of April, a group
(44:28):
called the Temperate Orchard Conservancy UM, working together with a
nonprofit called the Lost Apple Project UM, announced that they
had located ten previously thought extinct varieties over just the
past few months. Yeah. I highly recommend checking all these
stories out because there are a lot of it's fascinating,
it is. Yeah, this last one, like I know that
(44:50):
they're working with at least one like retired FBI agent
like stuff like that. I'm like, what are you talking about?
I love this. That's so good. Meanwhile, going back a
little bit, um, in ninety six, Apple Computer Company was founded.
(45:10):
Um the very first iteration of their logo was a
woodcut style image of Newton under the apple tree. Or
Another story goes that Apple founder Steve Jobs was big
into fruits uh and came up with the name on
the way back from a visit to an apple orchard,
and that the bite represents a bite by t E. Yeah, well,
(45:30):
I mean it also represents the fact that it's an
apple and not say, like a tomato. I think they
want like a visual queue in there. You they need
a tomato like that you I have, I have to.
I don't like this assumption. Um. But yeah, there's a
lot of logo legends around this. Another one goes back
(45:51):
to the death of Alan Turing, who died by cyanide
laced Apple in nineteen fifty four. Steve Jobs, in early
coders working on what became Apple, according to the story,
wanted to pay a tribute to the work Touring had
done that they were building off of. But most people
who know see this isn't actually true. It sounds like
one of those things where it's like a nice story
(46:11):
and you want to believe it. But probably yeah, I
Steve Steve Jobs, I think, has said something to the
extent of like, well, I really like apples, um and um.
For for sure, the very first iteration of that logo
was the Newton under the tree thing. I'm not sure
if they were inspired by Newton or if it was
(46:33):
just enjoying apples. It was the turing thing. At any rate,
this is this is all the stuff of mysteries of
tech history. Yes, awesome mysteries in this Apple episode. And
apples weren't just associated with sin infertility. I mean, as
we've been kind of alluding to, they're also associated with knowledge. Um. Yeah.
(46:55):
And to that end. In fourteen bio Artists, which I
did not know this was the thing, but very cool,
Joe Davis said about creating a literal tree of knowledge
by using DNA of the oldest known strain of Apple
to store fifty thousand Wikipedia's most popular pages. This is
a fascinating read. I I highly recommend learning more about it.
But apparently a single drop of DNA can store seven
(47:17):
hundred terabytes of data. Um. And the trick is converting
the four nucleotide basis that make up DNA to binary code,
and they were talking about how many trees this is
gonna take to get all of Wikipedia in there, and fascinating,
just fascinating. Um. Back to literal apples though, Um, these
(47:37):
days apple producers are are indeed concerned about disruptions to
to the international supply chain and the consumer market that
have been brought about due to covid um, but they
are even more concerned about climate change. Yeah, very concerning,
two very contro things. Yep, yep uh. And like we
(48:01):
said at the top, really there's so many, so many
branches on this one that we could have gone down. Um.
So if there's like an aspect you would really want
us to hone in on, just just let us know,
just let us know. Oh yeah, yeah, absolutely I am.
And now now I just have a really huge graving
(48:22):
for Apple butter. I love an apple butter. Apple butter
is pretty fantastic. Yeah. Well, now that now that we
have that graving, we do have some listener mail for you.
We do, but first we've got one more quick break
for a word from our sponsor. And we're back. Thank you, sponsor, Yes,
(48:49):
thank you, and we're back. With the nerves. Man, it's
an apple getting thrown up and being dropped. Ety yeah.
I can't whistle um, And I know that's really unimportant
to what just happened, but I was trying to think
of like that kind of whistling sound that cartoons use
a lot when something's dropping. I was trying to replicate that.
(49:13):
I don't know how successful I was, but you wouldn't.
Some you lose some, you know. Thank you. It's the
effort that's important. It's the journey, not the destination. Yes,
thank you for effort for me, Astley wrote, I recently
listened to your Marshall episode and I loved it. I
(49:34):
love your podcast and always look forward to new episodes.
I'll thank you. I totally forgot about fluffer nots until
it was brought up in your podcast. Had them occasionally
growing up, but never knew the name for them. In
my family and I had a trip to Hawaii with
my grandparents. We brought the game Taboo and played the
game while having coffee together one day, and my grandpa
got the word fluffer nutter and started laughing, thinking the
(49:58):
word was funny and having we're trying to describe it
without using the word listed. I was on his team
and looked at his card to try to help him,
and I started laughing too, and the rest of my
family started laughing, simply because my grandpa and I were
and thought it was funny how hard it was for
us to stop. Since this trip, my grandpa has unfortunately
passed away, but this is one of my favorite memories
(50:19):
with my grandpa, and I forgot about it until listening
to your Marshmallow episode. I'm so happy I remembered that
day on the trip. I feel like I unlocked a
forgotten memory. Thank you for talking about fluffer nutters. Oh
that's a beautiful story. I too forgot about fluffer nutters,
and it is a very funny word. It's really silly
(50:42):
fluffer nutters. I wish I had more occasion to use it.
Oh yeah, Oh, you could start using it as an
adjective or something if you really wanted to. I think
it would be very cute, but cursed, like, oh, fluffer nutters.
I I occasionally called the cats fluffer nutters. Be like,
what's up, will fluffer nutter? What are you doing? That's
(51:03):
pretty solid nickname? Yeah? Yeah, um Mary wrote you inadvertently
solved a lifelong mystery for me, albeit a rather low
key one in your episode on cash shows. My grandparents
lived in Springfield, Missouri, and we would visit them every
summer throughout my childhood. My family lived in Kansas City,
(51:24):
about a four or five hour drive away. My grandma
was a character with strong opinions and a lot of energy.
Mostly this was good. She was proud of her family
and her town and not above, let's say, embellishing some
facts to make them look better. She was always trying
something new, and some of my favorite times as a
kid happened on these visits to her house. This included
(51:44):
my introduction to Chinese food, which was almost always a
deep fried version of cashew chicken delicious. But I remember
my grandma claiming this Chinese dish was created in Springfield.
I was sort of doubtful of this. The Springfield is
not a very verse city and does not have a
large Asian population. It seemed doubtful that Chinese dish would
(52:05):
be from there. But my grandma was fiercely protective and
proud of her town, and I did not wish to
question her facts. I never really looked it up. It
was in the eighties. I was a kid in time past,
no Google back then, and it kind of fell from
my mind. But then your podcast on cash shows came on,
and wow, Grandma was right. Springfield, Missouri is indeed the
(52:26):
home of a deep fried version of cashew chicken. I
feel bad for doubting her on this, but at least
she has been vindicated. She passed away about ten years ago.
I miss her and wish I could share the fact
that her beloved hometown made an appearance on one of
my favorite podcasts. Oh, I'm glad we could help solve
(52:47):
this mystery for you. Yes, Oh my heck, Oh my heck.
I also love I love that. I love this story.
I just love the whole thing. I love that there
is a deep pride version of this. Yeah, Springfield, Missouri,
and it's called Springfield Style And apparently even people who
(53:09):
have eaten it are confused about that. It's one of
those I really am a fan. Through this show. I've
learned that in this big country there's just these super
regional dishes and I love it so much. Yeah, it's
really it's it's really amazing. Um and especially like you know,
(53:30):
it's ah, if you're if you're the kind of traveler
who just kind of like shows up and sees what
they see. Um, then you might miss some of these things.
So it's really it's really wonderful getting to do this
kind of research and talk to these kind of humans
about this sort of stuff and like, yeah, really really
dig in deep to what the local specialties are. Yes,
(53:51):
always always, always send interesting local specialties or any local
specialties are a way, They're all interesting, they are, Yes,
thanks to both those listeners are writing. If you would
like to send those to us, you can. Our email
is hello at savor pod dot com. We are also
on social media. You can find us on Twitter, Facebook,
and Instagram. Our handle at all three is at savor
(54:13):
pod and we do hope to hear from you. Savor
is production of my Heart Radio. For more podcasts my
heart Radio, visit the heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or
wherever you listen to your favorite shows. Thanks as always
to our super producers Dylan Fagin and Andrew Howard. Thanks
to you for listening, and we hope that lots more
good things are coming your way.
Hello, I'm welcome to Savor production of I Heart Radio.
I'm Annie Reese and I'm Lauren Vogelbaum. And today we're
talking about apples, yes, which is a big topic. Yeah,
big enough that uh when I suggested it, um, I
was like, Annie, are you is this okay? Is this
(00:29):
okay for this week? And I was like, maybe it's
like we can do something different, Like we don't have
to right now we must. Yeah, we've been. We've been
putting it off a while because it is a big topic,
just you know, lots of lots of ground to cover.
I still feel like I could have I could have
kept adding to this outline forever. It could have just
(00:52):
been eternal apple, Yes, yes, Apple eternal. I also realized
that as I was doing this, there are so many
sayings throughout history that have apple in them, and I
didn't even remember some. As we were about to record,
I forgot about apples to oranges, which I feel like
(01:13):
would be pretty I don't know, I understand it's probably
long time it's been around. I guess I'm trying to say, oh, yeah,
I have not looked it up. Of all the animal
logical things that I looked up for this one that
was not one of them. So I it's gonna have
to be a mystery to us as well as you
unless you know where that came from, and then let
(01:35):
us know. Yeah, yeah, and then let us know. Um.
So I have done some apple picking in my day.
I grew up near l J, Georgia, which is like
the apple center of of Georgia, and it was a
field trip we would go on when I was in
elementary school. We go to allergy into the apple orchards.
(01:58):
But no, I even fear because I have a tooth,
a fake tooth, and told me very seriously that I
had to avoid apples, carrots and ice. Now I can
slice it up, oh, but not a whole apple. Who
wants to deal with that hassle? Oh see, I don't.
(02:19):
I don't like eating the whole apples because of the
texture against your teeth, like like the snap of the
skin and then like the pipe of the fruit is
really upsetting to me when it's a whole apple situation.
So yeah, I always slice an apple. If I'm going
to eat one, I slice it. This is why I
don't eat more apples. Do you like them in general?
(02:42):
I do? I do? Um? I get cravings for apples
and then I'm like, oh darn, slice it, and then
it just sits there until I eventually am like, this
is too soft to eat out of hand. I need
to like make like a crumble or something like that,
which I would I did, uh last week or this week,
(03:02):
and time is meaningless now. I don't know recently, recently
enough that I still have some in my fridge and
I ate some with some yogurt while we were preparing
this outline. So that sounds lovely. It was lovely. Uh. Yeah,
I've I've never been apple picking to my to my dismay,
I've lived in in Georgia so close to him for
so long. Um, I keep trying to go every fall,
(03:24):
and it has not worked out so far. But um,
I do have early memories of a family reunion that
took place at an apple orchard, um my mom's side
of the family, somewhere up in Ohio. It would have been.
I do think it's funny that apple picking has kind
of become synonymous with a bad date. That makes that
makes me laugh, is it? Yeah? I mean I've frequently
(03:45):
seen it as a joke of like, oh no, go
app I've never seen that stereotype. I love it though.
That's that's really I would definitely being the I would
be the person that's like we're going apple picking. Yeah right, Um,
so we did choose this because, um, it's fall. Uh,
(04:07):
it's Halloween adjacent, like if you think about bobbing for apples,
and of course like the story of snow White, the
poisoned apple, yeah, or the apple in the in the Witch. Yes, yes,
I just watched a horror movie where the big plot
twist in the end was apples, like planting apple seeds
and somebody throw the tree out of that body and
(04:29):
then you eat the apple and you get like use
oh the whole thing. Okay, it was a whole thing. Uh.
And we recently talked to Dan Fassion of The Sportful
about the Cosmic Crisp, which is a new apple hitting
the market, which, yeah, until we talked to him about
that and really realized how many apples you have to
(04:53):
choose from from the store, which, as we're gonna get into,
is actually nothing in the history of apples, but in
the scheme apples, yeah, yeah, but compared to like oranges
or bananas, you do have you know, a handful of
types of apples, and usually somebody's got you got your
favorite types of apples and apples used for cooking and
all kinds of things. It's a whole, it's a whole
(05:15):
commercial apple world, it is. And we have done a
couple of other episodes about apple products before. Yes, we've
done one on cider and apple pie, and I know
for one of those, I think it was apple pie,
but it might have been cider. We really went more
in depth into the story of Johnny Appleseed. Do you
(05:36):
want to get back and give that a listen. We're
going to mention it in here, but not go is
in depth since we've already covered it. Yes. Um. We also,
alongside the apple Pie podcast episode, we did a video
episode with our dear friend Julius skinner Um, who is
a historical colin culinarily historical human person um. You might
(06:00):
recognize her from our episode about Afternoon Tea Um. And
she she helped us or we helped her rather, um
make this this old, old old apple pie recipe with
like whole apples and you stick them in a pie
crust and then you eat them and it's kind of
confusing but delicious. It was really good it was really good.
I think it was difficult to eat, but it was
(06:22):
really good. Yeah. And the reason it was more difficult,
I think it was more difficult to eat because the
smallest apples we could find we're a good deal larger
than the size that they would have been using back
in the day. That's true. Um. I also want to
take this moment as always to mention the apple muffin.
(06:43):
I've brought this up before. If if you're like me
and in your need of something to laugh at, go
look up this clip of the New York government arguing
about the apple right every time. I bring it up,
every single time, and I will continue to do so. Well,
thank you. It's a it's a it's a good and
(07:04):
important reminder. You're welcome. It's a service that I do.
But okay, I guess who should get direct question? Apples?
What are they? Well? An apple is a fruit that
grows on short to midsized deciduous trees a botanical name
(07:24):
malice domestica, that prefer a temperate climate, including a cool winter,
to give the tree time to to lie dormant and
store up nutrients for when flowers and then fruits in
the spring. Those flowers start out kind of pink and
often fade to white, and when they're pollinated, will each
develop a single fruit with this thin, edible, sort of
snappy skin containing a thick layer of varyingly crisp and
(07:48):
juicy flesh, which in turn contains a papery but still
edible core protecting a few small seeds, usually five, sometimes
other numbers. Um. Depending on the variety, the fruits can
re raange from like the size of a cherry to
like the size of a grapefruit. In skin color when ripe,
from green to gold, to red to purple, and in
flesh color from white to cream to blush to crimson.
(08:12):
There are some wild looking varieties of apples out there, y'all. Um.
The trees, by the way, are in the rose family rosicassier,
and they're pretty hardy, but a little bit tricksy because
in order to get the kind of fruit that you want,
you can't just plant a seed from a fruit that
you enjoyed. Um, Like, the resulting tree could carry any
(08:35):
kind of fruit by the time it matures and so um.
So yeah, yeah, you get the fruit that you want
through grafting, which is sort of like botanically Frank and
Stein ing a limb from the tree that you want
onto whatever other apple tree that you've got. Um and apples, yeah,
can range from from sweet and juicy to quite sour
(08:57):
and dry, and anything in between. Really different varieties are
used for eating fresh, cooking and baking both sweet and
savory dishes, and making into vinegar, juice, cider, wine, and
other beverages. Um apples also contain a lot of pectin,
which is like a jellifying kind of fiber. It's it
soaks up a lot of water um, which is super
(09:18):
useful in making like jams and jellies and other products.
And uh yeah, these days, growers use all kinds of
cool agricultural tricks and technologies to get like the most
best fruit out of their orchards. UM, you know, developing
and training trees with that have that have more compact branches, UM,
using machines that allow for easier pruning and picking, using
(09:41):
reflective materials on the ground to like bounce sunlight up
at the bottom of the fruit to encourage like more
even coloration. Wow, I love it nice. You know, I
forgot until we were doing this research, I forgot about
the whole um when you eat an apple, it feels
like you brushed your teeth. Yeah. Yeah, they say that
(10:02):
the fibers in it are good for your teeth, but
I feel like the sugars in it are probably bad
for your teeth. So I don't know. Maybe maybe it
like helps get rid of plaque, but at the same time,
probably still brush your teeth afterwards. Are not Yeah, not
to say don't brush your teeth at all, just eat apples.
So that's not I'm not I'm not a dentist, but
(10:23):
that's not what I'm recommending. No. Two out of two
podcasters agree. What about the nutrition then, uh, well, apples
are are low in calories and high end fiber, with
a small spattering of vitamins and minerals primarily vitamins C
and potassium, and also a pretty good spread of like
stuff what helps your body get stuff done. Um, they're
(10:47):
being investigated for helping reduce heart disease and cancer. Lots
of antioxidant kind of stuff like that. Um, they are
a little bit sugary, so um. You know that they'll
help fill you up, but to keep you going, let's
say pair with a little bit of protein and fat
for a better balanced snack. Oh, I love those ants
on a log. Well, not that that's not what this
is actually a good Halloween treat, not azon a log.
(11:09):
But you can make like a face with an apple
and you put peanut butter in it, like marshmallows for
teeth are raisins for tea. Well, numbers wise, the US
Apple Association, which I love, claims that in two thousand nine,
apple producers turned out thirty million apples. China is the
(11:33):
world's largest producer of apples, followed by the United States.
Uh yeah. China also consumes the most apples, like by far,
like forty percent of the world's total volume of apples,
which for the record is over seventies seven million metric
tons per year worldwide. Um. So that and so like
(11:55):
like we come in second in terms of eating apples,
but like they eat penfold more than we do, like
we like a little less than five percent dared to um,
we also produce ninefold less than they do. So this
wild amounts of apples is what we're talking about. Wow,
(12:18):
I don't think I had a single apple when I
was in China, and that was really for almost a year.
It could have been it could have been a thing
of like I was trying. I was trying all these
new things. I know what those are. I have I
have read that they can be part of New Year's
(12:39):
celebrations because there's a pun involved. I forget which pun now.
I read this and then I didn't write it down.
But that's okay. I believe it. Uh yeah, And I
was there for New Year's but I just didn't maybe
I didn't even make no a mental note of it. Well,
(13:00):
there are a lot varieties of apples. One of the
largest apple orchards in the world, if not the largest,
is the U. S Das Plant Genetics Resources Unit in
New York, which boasts two thousand, five hundred types of
apple from all over. And yeah, like depending on who
you ask, I the number that I saw a lot
(13:21):
was that across the world there are some types of apple.
Um and but I also read that like that, like
there may have been and I'm not sure if this
was like over the course of history or like hidden apples.
I'm not sure, but like as many as like thirty
(13:42):
thousand varieties, so I don't know either way. I mean,
I mean, seven thousand five d apples is still it's
a lot, a bunch of apples. It is. It is,
in fact a bunch of apples. However, fifteen varieties make
up of apples in the US of the apples were consuming.
(14:07):
The delicious variety, which I know gets a lot of hate. Uh,
is the most grown in the United States and the
most consumed. Yeah. Uh. And and that's kind of similar
outside of the United States as well. Um. Only about
twenty to forty varieties of apples are widely commercially produced
(14:28):
around the world. Apples in general are America's second most
popular fruit bananas first, if you're wondering. And the average
American eats about sixteen pounds of apples a year wow,
which is not which is impressive, but it's not globally
impressive because per capita as of Poland, eight pounds of
(14:53):
apples per person per year. That's forty five kilos UM,
with Turkey and Iran not far behind its seventy three
pounds are about thirty three kilos each DAN. That is
a lot of apples. You were doing a lot more
snacking on apples than I am. I strongly suspect. Uh.
(15:14):
They are, though, the third most grown fruit in the world,
with a global market value a very nearly seventy nine
billion dollars as of twenty nineteen. I keep wanting to
say how about them apples and refraining, and now I'm
telling you so it's almost as bad as saying I
just want to put out there that it's like. I
(15:36):
know you're probably thinking it listeners in the back of
your head. I am too. I'm right there with them.
There you go, but I'm trying to show restraint. Oh gosh, um.
There there are apple festivals across the United States, um
around the world as well. If you've been to one
in your area, please right in and let us know
what that's like. Yes, oh my gosh, yes, I want
(15:59):
to know if they're is a pageant. I want to
know if there's games. I want to know your puns.
I want to know your your foods. Me too. I should.
I never went to the one in l J, but
oh no, Well LJ is sort of it's one of
those small towns that's on a two lane road and
there's always a huge semi and like forts behind you. Yeah,
(16:22):
and it gets packed in the fall. Everybody goes they
want the apples. You gotta go early in the season
or else. That's my word of advice for you, oh
duly noted. Okay, yes, and the apples perhaps the most
well known fruit in the world, particularly for going by
number of depictions and media it's popped up in. Aren't
(16:43):
all around the globe throughout history. Poets from Emily Dickinson
to Robert FoST written about them, and artists like Magreets
have painted them. Clearly, they've been the object of our
imagination for quite a while, m Um, and we are
going to get into the history of that. But first
(17:04):
we're going to take a quick break for a word
from our sponsor, and we're back. Thank you sponsored, Yes,
thank you. So apples are ancient um like large fruiting
precursors may go back nine just seven million years ago.
(17:29):
The seeds spread by these giant animals well by okay,
by by large fruiting, we we mean something like the
size we see today as opposed to the smaller varieties
that were around for a lot of history. Um. And
by giant animals, um they mean human sized or larger
um like like like nine pounds forty kilos and up um,
(17:52):
although they could get quite big like like in the
America's They think that humans and bears and maybe deer.
Maybe some animals simil are two like a mastodon. We're
carrying them around. Um in Africa, humans and other primates, elephants, rhinoceroses,
various types of wild horse, um, stuff like that. So
I'm impressed by like the rhinoceros thing. I'm like, all right, yeah, right,
(18:16):
thanks rhinoceros. Yeah, thank you. We don't think the rhinoceros enough. Uh.
And I also love how the word mega fauna kept
coming up. I'd never heard that word, but I, oh, yeah,
that's it just means yeah, like like weighing more than
ninety pounds forty kilos man, like this huge ass apple,
(18:39):
like big creature. Get well, that's still pretty cool, alright, alright.
The first modern apples are thought to have originated in
Kazakhstan are neighboring regions. Recent research suggests that humans have
been trading wild apple seats for over ten thousand years,
and art from the time indicates domesticated apples might have
(19:02):
been around in southern Europe for at least two thousand years.
The oldest known variety is four thousand years old. Yeah,
the ancient Romans may have cultivated like six different varieties,
which is pretty cool. Um, although overall, yeah, like the
whole domestication process of the apple is still a little
bit unclear. There is a lot of research going into it, uh,
(19:24):
mostly articles that have words like megafauna and yes, yes,
and it's recent research. Yeah, And speaking of some recent
genetic research suggests that our modern apple is a hybrid
of four types of wild apples that probably came together
via trade on the Silk Road. Prior to that, the
ice age had isolated different apple types from each other.
(19:48):
This hybridization resulted in a larger apple, which humans later
selected for through grafting. And there is a whole book
about this, apparently called Fruit of the Sands. Um. It's
by one Robert Spengler. It is currently sitting under my
desk and I have not had a chance to read
it yet, And now I'm really mad at myself. That's
(20:10):
a good title because from that I wouldn't know immediately
it could be any number of things. It also it
also talk does talk about a bunch of other different
different stuff that was being traded around at the time.
But um, but yeah, perhaps perhaps mainly the apple perhaps.
And also I feel like we've mentioned this before in
one of our previous apple adjacent episodes, but apples at
(20:33):
this time, like wild apples, were often very sour and
yeah and probably really a stringent like if yellow ever eaten?
Um uh crab apple yeah, which are the type that
is native to America. Um, They're they're puckery there. It's
like it's like eating like a like a dry lemon. H.
(20:58):
Your facial expression is saying everything you need to me.
It's like a lemon filled with like sand, like a
sand lemon. It's it's a really interesting experience that I definitely.
We had a crab apple tree in my front yard
for a few years when I was growing up, and
it was a really good climbing tree. And every every year,
(21:19):
every year I would be like, oh man, I should
try maybe they'll be different this time. Never Nope. I
appreciate the optimism and hope though. You know, um, sure,
let's call it that. Let's call it optimism and hope.
That's That's what I'm going. Seven year old Lauren was
working off of, Yes, that's what I think. Um. Since
(21:43):
prehistoric times, apples have had this sort of mystique around them.
Wild apples that grew across Europe and Asia were often
viewed as sacred as granters of youth and fertility, particularly
women's fertility. Since apples came in the fall and were
turned into butters and ciders and all kinds of things
to help people get through the winter. Uh, and then
(22:05):
the trees blossom in the spring, many associated the apple
with renewal. Yeah, and perhaps because of this, apples have
featured in stories throughout our history. In Greek mythology, the
Greek goddess Atlanta was able to outrun any suitors until
a wise man tempted her with an apple and she stops.
(22:28):
The Trojan War was kicked off over an argument about
the golden apple, the golden apple of beauty. Yeah, I
totally forgot about the um. If you look at the
story of King Arthur, he was laid to rest in
avalon the quote isle of apples. According to legend, magical
golden apples of immortality gave the Norse gods their powers.
(22:48):
So that's where Thor gets his. He's got a thunder,
But I'm like, isn't it lightning? Though? Anyway, different different
complaint for a different day. Um. In Arabian night, the
magic apple was capable of curing all ailments and diseases. However,
as we've mentioned before, while our modern interpretation of the
(23:09):
forbidden fruit that Eve took a bite out of in
the Garden of Eden Uh is an apple, it's actually
only called fruit in the text. So pretty much every
fruit has been put forth as potential Canada, especially fruits
that would have been growing around this time. I guess
um of when it was written, where it was written,
(23:29):
particularly the fig However, it is true that the apple
is the one that we have culturally seemed to have
settled on in visual depictions, especially more modernly, and this
probably came about in the twelfth century. Historians think it
might have been because the Latin word malice meant both
apple and even by fifteen four at the very least,
(23:54):
an engraving by Albert Durer showed Eve with an apple,
and there was a sixteenth century painting that depicted Adam
and Eve under an apple tree. By the time of
Milton's Paradise Lost in the seventeenth century, the image of
apple with a capital at was pretty much solidified. Yeah
and uh. And part of the confusion about the original
(24:16):
intent there is that for a long time in many
Proto Indo European descendant languages. Um. The words for apple
could refer specifically to an apple or to any kind
of fruit in general. UM, which is also where you
get kind of hilarious compound phrases for different like new
to Europe produce that we're coming in starting with the
(24:39):
age of colonization, um, like a like the apple of
Paradise for the banana, or the pta, the apple of
the Earth for the potato. Yep, yep. That does add
a layer of confusion, for sure. It doesn't help, doesn't help, No,
no history. Yeah, what was trying to mess us up? Now?
(25:04):
As a kid, I loved this movie which I sent
you watched and wasn't very well. I still enjoyed it,
but it wasn't very good called What Lies Beneath, and
it had an apple was like forbidden seduction scene in there.
That really yeah with me as a kid, I'm sure
that that's exactly what was going on in in in
the Witch. Um. Although I although I wondered, yeah, no,
(25:25):
I guess by by that time, by that time, the
apple was pretty much that thing. So good on, good
on it, good on it. The phrase apple of my
eye was first recorded in the ninth century Gregory's pastoral
Care by King Alfred of Wessex. And it actually referred
to the pupil of the like like literally like, not
(25:49):
like figuratively like it was just your people. Yes. At
the time, the people was believed to be this solid,
round object. And of course back then vision was precious.
They were there many ways to improve your vision if
something went yeah. And because of that, as time progress,
the saying came to denote something precious. Uh. I know,
(26:10):
I actually wasn't really sure what that's saying meant until
I did this research. Well, it appeared into the King
James version of the Bible and A Midsummer's Night Dream,
I believe the first time. I I was familiar with
the phrase because of who framed Roger Rabbit. Because because
when he when he thinks that, when when when Roger
the you know, the rabbit thinks that Jessica, his lovely wife,
(26:33):
has has played Pattycake with another man. Um, he goes, No,
She's the light of my life, the apple of my eye,
the cream in my coffee. Now talking about a horror movie,
I saw that once as a kid, Never again, because
it's scared to me so badly. Oh wow, it was.
I was really scared of it as a child too,
but in a way that I enjoyed. Like Christopher Lloyd
(26:55):
really wigged me out in that film, like and I
was used to him. Is like Doc Brown in the
in the Back of the Future movies, So I was like,
why do actors like That? Was one of my first
experiences of like actors play different roles. I mean, what
lies beneath is also that? Yeah, yeah, I actually thought
(27:17):
apple and my I meant like your kid. So I'm
glad I haven't come up with I haven't used it inappropriately.
That would have been really embarrassing, now I know. There
you go. Yeah yeah. Apple trees proliferated across Europe in
the thirteenth century. One of the first known encyclopedia is,
published in fourteen seventy, included an entry on apples INDs
(27:41):
of physician to Queen Elizabeth the First, which, by the way,
she said was the best physician around or something like that,
recommended smelling an apple to recover strengths. That's nice, it's
nice smell um. Around the time, several Shakespeare's works did
mention apples. During the sixteenth century, we get the first
recorded instance of bad apple. It might have been rotten
(28:03):
apple at the time, but uh, and it appeared in
Schaucer's The Canterbury Tales. So many apple phrases. Um, the
original meaning was someone who creates problems for other people,
but many people modernly use it incorrectly that bad behavior
is not reflective of the whole like there's just one
(28:23):
bad apple or whatever, and it doesn't mean that this
whole organization is bad. Yeah. Yeah, because the original meaning
or the original phrase was something to the extent of
one rotten apple spoils the whole barrel rum and many
people use it today to me in the opposite Yes,
and that might be because you'll never believe this. In
(28:46):
nineteen seventy, the Osman Brothers, Yes, they came out with
a hit song called one Bad Apple parentheses, don't spoil
the whole bunch girl, exclamation mark, and history was made.
I like to think that the Osman Brothers were like
(29:07):
specifically throwing down a gauntlet like at Chaucer. Yeah, probably
at the beef of history. We need to know more about.
Yeah yeah, what did Chaucer ever do to you all? Yeah?
Osman Brothers. If someone knows the story behind it, let
us know, we have another apple related phrase, the apple
(29:30):
doesn't fall far from the tree, and that perhaps goes
back is as far as although I saw some really
wide ranging dates for it, um, so it could be
way older, like way way older mysteries history. I'm sure
some version of that saying has been around for a
long time because it just kind of makes sense. It does.
(29:50):
It's it's literal. I mean, apples do not fall far
from their trees. Yes, that is true, and yes that
could have meanings, so it's true. It's true. French traders
(30:11):
brought apple seeds to Canada in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.
Apple trees were brought to Africa in sixteen fifty four
in Australia in seventeen eight. European colonists settling in America
brought apple seeds with them. Yes, they only found crab
apples when they arrived, along with traditions and beliefs around
(30:31):
apples themselves. One of those traditions was one that a
lot of us are probably familiar with, bobbing for apples,
which I have never in my life done, and I
really now it's pretty gross. And I think that in
these like our COVID times, like that's not going to
be a thing for a very long time. Uh. I
(30:54):
always like, even as a child, I was like this
is gross and and damp and like difficult. I have
I have participated in this and like fallfares and elementary school. Yeah,
but I was terrifically unsuccessful. It seems like it would
be hard. It's not easy. It's not, especially when you
(31:17):
have a tiny child jaw yeah. Oh yeah, come on now,
not fair? Well, okay, this this has a great story
behind it. So apparently girls and women back in the
olden times I would secretly mark the apples and put
them in a barrel of water, and then potential matches
(31:40):
were dunk their heads into that water and bite into
the first apple that they could as a way to
see romantic futures. It's like, oh, we should be together.
Um it's the romantic party game colonial American times. Yeah.
Uh And this wasn't the only romantic party game or not,
(32:01):
I guess, not party game but predictor tradition associated with
the apple in New England. After the apple harvest, apples
needed to be peeled for apple butter to last the winter.
Like a lot of apples um, young unattached women would
attempt to peel the apple without breaking the peel and
then toss it over their shoulder and then look to
(32:23):
see what letter the peel formed. Yes, it's supposed to
be the first letter of the name of your future spouse.
Now I have done this, and I've talked about it
before on the show. I've also talked about how I
feel like there's some blenders you just can't get, Like
you're only going to get a CE or maybe a
D or like an eye. Um. Anyway, I don't know
(32:44):
why I'm getting so mad about this. It really depends
on how you peel it though, Like if you if
you just go around the apple, then you're probably pretty limited.
But like if you do some like clever zin shiging,
like you could get like a W or an M
pretty easy. I think you're right. I think you can
rip the system a little bit. Yeah, you can game
(33:04):
this one. Oh wow, that's funny. I hadn't really thought
about that. See when I played it, like you, you
would do that, and then you had to go inside
for like an hour and let it like curl into
whatever it was going to do, always just to see
or maybe a d anyway. Uh. Not only this, Uh.
(33:33):
This connection between the fortune telling abilities of apples and
Halloween goes way back, all the way back to Salween,
the Celtic festival and precursor to our modern Halloween. UM.
And we have talked about this before, but briefly. This
festival usually occurred at the end of October. It was
a celebration of harvest, end of summers, and not just
(33:53):
for the current year, but potentially forever the days start
getting shorter. What are going to do about it? Right? Right?
And there was this fear that maybe it's just irreversible. Um.
So to hopefully prevent that and ensure that spring in
the harvest would return, people would have these huge bonfires, um,
make sacrifices of animals to the gods or leave gifts
(34:18):
of fruits and nuts uh, and hang apples from evercreen trees.
And this allowed for those that had died over the
previous year to pass through the barrier into the underworld, which,
according to what I read, was believed to be pretty thick.
But on this day he would do this. It's it's thinner,
it's thinner. The veil is thinner. You can do the
(34:40):
things you can do the thing people can go through.
But of course that allowed for some perhaps troublesome spirits
to come into our world. Um. It also increased the
power of divination, this thinner veil, so it's believed that
you could you could contact people or see the future
a more easily. Yeah yeah, um so cool Halloween. A
(35:06):
side aside, These early apple orchards in the US did
struggle at first until Europeans shipped over honey bees, in
which I totally forgot about the Yeah. Yeah, the European
honey bees were really important to it. Yeah. A few
shipments followed in the ensuing years, and by the sixteen
forties orchards were doing pretty well. And like we discussed
(35:28):
in our cider episode, a lot of these early apples
did go into cider more for drinking than for eating,
because again they were probably pretty sour, a lot of them. Um. Then,
in sixteen sixty five or sixty six, the Stuff of Science,
the legend Sir Isaac Newton was sitting under a tree
when an apple hit him on the head or perhaps
(35:49):
just fell in front of him, and he came up
with the law of gravity. Infamous story or yes, as
the story goes, Yes, Yes, there was a really funny
dry like I think it was from the Royal Science
whatever that that society is. There's a really funny entry
about well. I thought it was funny. But it was
(36:09):
like Isaac Newton sat there just twiling away the days,
wondering about and then an apple were to fall in
front of him, and it was just I thought it
was funny. In New York, in seventy seven, Robert Prince
set up the very first commercial nursery for apples in
the US up until the Civil War. The owners, which
(36:31):
stayed in family all those years, collected and sold apple
trees from all over the world and and other plants
um During the Revolutionary War, the nursery was considered important
enough for protection by British armed guards. However, M. M.
George Washington wasn't as impressed. After visiting in seventeen eighty nine,
(36:55):
he wrote, I set off from New York about nine
o'clock in my bargs to visit Mr. Prince's fruit gardens
and shrubberies at Flushing. These gardens, except in the number
of young fruit trees, did not answer my expectations. The
shrubs were trifling, and the flowers not numerous. The shrubs
were trifling. I fucking feel that old Diami burn. In
(37:20):
the seventeen eighties, Thomas Jefferson wrote, they have no apples
to compare with our new town pippen. I love the
word pippin. That's a good word. Yeah, more stuff of
a legend. John Chapman a K. Johnny apple Seed went
around with the bag seeds, claiming that good seeds and
not grafting, was the only way to get good apples.
(37:42):
In the late seventeen hundreds early eighteen hundreds. According to
some sources, he dreamt of producing enough apples that no
one would ever go hungry. He went out west, helping
to foster apple orchards. As he went, most of the
apples were too sour for eating, so they did end
up in apple side or apple jack, and because of that,
a lot of these orchards ended up getting burned. With
(38:04):
the temperance movement and prohibition. Uh yeah, there's actually I
know we talked about it in whatever episode where we
talked about Johnny apple Steed. I thought it was not
a real person. So this was shocking to me. Uh,
And there is a lot of out there about him.
A lot of it is probably you know the stuff
of legend, but if you want to know more, there's
a lot out there. In eighteen seventeen, William Cox published
(38:27):
one of the first American works on apples, and the
US had thousands of varieties of apples by the middle
of the eighteen hundreds, more than anywhere else in the world.
Apples made their way out to the Pacific Northwest and
eighteen The Delicious variety of apple originated in eighteen seventy
and an orchard in Iowa. It was a variety that
(38:50):
refused to die, and when the owners sent a sample
to the eighteen nine Louisiana Apple Fair, the president of
Stark Nurseries tried it and dubbed it Delicious and the
name is history. The name is history. Around the same time,
speaking of in Australia, Maria Ann Smith randomly spotted a
(39:11):
seedling in her compost pile that went on to produce
the variety now known as Granny smith Um. The story
goes it was the result of a crab apple tossed
out her window. And apparently there is a huge Granny
Smith festival in Australia. So if anyone's ever been to that,
please please let us know, we see the first written
(39:36):
record of the phrase an apple and egg keeps the
doctor's away, or perhaps it was this version, it's a
apple avore, a game to bed, and you'll make the
doctor Bega's bread. I don't know what that first part means,
but I understand the second bit. If you have an
apple before you go to bed, Um, you'll make the
(39:56):
doctor bega's bread something something. I'm I'm guessing that's what
it means. My excellent uh maneuvering of old English. This
whole thing was a part of rebranding of sorts for
apples in the US after prohibition. Since again, most apples
(40:17):
before that went into hard cider. So this whole it's
healthy eating. Eat this food that we make, please. Yeah.
And another apple tradition might have emerged during this time,
giving an apple to the teacher. Yeah. I forgot about
this too until we were doing this research. Um. During
(40:38):
frontier times, teachers were seen as these moral figures, and
families whose children attended their classes often were responsible for
feeding them. An apple became a popular food to give,
and this stuck around even after this whole we're feeding
the teacher thing went away in ninety nine, being Crosby
released an Apple a Day complete with this line, and
(41:00):
an apple for the teacher will always do the trick
when you don't know your lesson and arithmetic. And we
see this in Pinocchio. Christmas story had it um by
the term apple polisher meant essentially brown noser. Uh, and
the fact that school started in September, coinciding with the
(41:20):
start of apple season might have also played into it. Sure, yeah, sure.
The candied apple was allegedly invented by accident in when Newark,
New Jersey, candy maker William Culb knocked some apples into
candy syrup. Since sugar refineries and apples were plentiful in
that region, candied apples might have become a Halloween staple
(41:43):
soon after that. I'm sure, like that's a great story,
but I'm sure you know, it just kind of makes sense.
When you're coding stuffing candy syrup and you have an
apple sitting there, You're like, huh, what about this? What
about this? By these the US had over ten thousand
varieties of apples. Thanks to inexpensive refrigerated transportation, urbanization, and commercialization,
(42:10):
many of those apple varieties are gone, but a lot
of people a lot of people have been working on
bringing them back and documenting them. Beginning in Maine in
nineteen seventy two, a man named John Bunker, who is
also called the Apple Whisperer uh the Apple Guy, set
out rescuing, rescue rig apple varieties. He estimates he saved
(42:31):
about eighty varieties of apples, and he did this through
all sorts of apple forensics and also with the help
of wanted posters about town like it would. They're so good,
it's like wanted alive. Narragansett apple last scene in New
York County. Exclamation Point originated on the farm of Jacob H.
(42:55):
Harmon Buxton in eighteen seventy three. If you know the
whereabout of this apple, please contact fed Cookee. If you
know the whereabouts of this apple? I love this so much.
And it came with a drawing of the apple. Oh wow, Yes,
it's so good. Um. And He's not the only one
by far. Another such person is Dan Bussey, who in
(43:20):
published The Illustrated History of Apples in the United States
and Canada, which was a collection of seven volumes ranging
each between five hundred and six hundred pages long. Whoa Wow,
documenting over sixteen thousand apple varieties and weighing in thirty
two pounds. Oh, of the apples listed in that book,
(43:41):
in this collection of volumes, only about are still grown today.
This is also an artistic endeavor UM. As of twenty nineteen,
a photographer by the name of William Mullins debuted his
Odd Apples project, which is this series of portraits of
strange varieties of apples. Portraits of apples. Yeah, and just
(44:03):
like really weird, gorgeous like apples that resemble anything from
like a golden potato to a grinning jack lantern, to
a black plum to a pearl. Wow. I don't have
to check that out. Yeah, look up odd Apples. It's
it's pretty spectacular. UM. Also, as of April, a group
(44:28):
called the Temperate Orchard Conservancy UM, working together with a
nonprofit called the Lost Apple Project UM, announced that they
had located ten previously thought extinct varieties over just the
past few months. Yeah. I highly recommend checking all these
stories out because there are a lot of it's fascinating,
it is. Yeah, this last one, like I know that
(44:50):
they're working with at least one like retired FBI agent
like stuff like that. I'm like, what are you talking about?
I love this. That's so good. Meanwhile, going back a
little bit, um, in ninety six, Apple Computer Company was founded.
(45:10):
Um the very first iteration of their logo was a
woodcut style image of Newton under the apple tree. Or
Another story goes that Apple founder Steve Jobs was big
into fruits uh and came up with the name on
the way back from a visit to an apple orchard,
and that the bite represents a bite by t E. Yeah, well,
(45:30):
I mean it also represents the fact that it's an
apple and not say, like a tomato. I think they
want like a visual queue in there. You they need
a tomato like that you I have, I have to.
I don't like this assumption. Um. But yeah, there's a
lot of logo legends around this. Another one goes back
(45:51):
to the death of Alan Turing, who died by cyanide
laced Apple in nineteen fifty four. Steve Jobs, in early
coders working on what became Apple, according to the story,
wanted to pay a tribute to the work Touring had
done that they were building off of. But most people
who know see this isn't actually true. It sounds like
one of those things where it's like a nice story
(46:11):
and you want to believe it. But probably yeah, I
Steve Steve Jobs, I think, has said something to the
extent of like, well, I really like apples, um and um.
For for sure, the very first iteration of that logo
was the Newton under the tree thing. I'm not sure
if they were inspired by Newton or if it was
(46:33):
just enjoying apples. It was the turing thing. At any rate,
this is this is all the stuff of mysteries of
tech history. Yes, awesome mysteries in this Apple episode. And
apples weren't just associated with sin infertility. I mean, as
we've been kind of alluding to, they're also associated with knowledge. Um. Yeah.
(46:55):
And to that end. In fourteen bio Artists, which I
did not know this was the thing, but very cool,
Joe Davis said about creating a literal tree of knowledge
by using DNA of the oldest known strain of Apple
to store fifty thousand Wikipedia's most popular pages. This is
a fascinating read. I I highly recommend learning more about it.
But apparently a single drop of DNA can store seven
(47:17):
hundred terabytes of data. Um. And the trick is converting
the four nucleotide basis that make up DNA to binary code,
and they were talking about how many trees this is
gonna take to get all of Wikipedia in there, and fascinating,
just fascinating. Um. Back to literal apples though, Um, these
(47:37):
days apple producers are are indeed concerned about disruptions to
to the international supply chain and the consumer market that
have been brought about due to covid um, but they
are even more concerned about climate change. Yeah, very concerning,
two very contro things. Yep, yep uh. And like we
(48:01):
said at the top, really there's so many, so many
branches on this one that we could have gone down. Um.
So if there's like an aspect you would really want
us to hone in on, just just let us know,
just let us know. Oh yeah, yeah, absolutely I am.
And now now I just have a really huge graving
(48:22):
for Apple butter. I love an apple butter. Apple butter
is pretty fantastic. Yeah. Well, now that now that we
have that graving, we do have some listener mail for you.
We do, but first we've got one more quick break
for a word from our sponsor. And we're back. Thank you, sponsor, Yes,
(48:49):
thank you, and we're back. With the nerves. Man, it's
an apple getting thrown up and being dropped. Ety yeah.
I can't whistle um, And I know that's really unimportant
to what just happened, but I was trying to think
of like that kind of whistling sound that cartoons use
a lot when something's dropping. I was trying to replicate that.
(49:13):
I don't know how successful I was, but you wouldn't.
Some you lose some, you know. Thank you. It's the
effort that's important. It's the journey, not the destination. Yes,
thank you for effort for me, Astley wrote, I recently
listened to your Marshall episode and I loved it. I
(49:34):
love your podcast and always look forward to new episodes.
I'll thank you. I totally forgot about fluffer nots until
it was brought up in your podcast. Had them occasionally
growing up, but never knew the name for them. In
my family and I had a trip to Hawaii with
my grandparents. We brought the game Taboo and played the
game while having coffee together one day, and my grandpa
got the word fluffer nutter and started laughing, thinking the
(49:58):
word was funny and having we're trying to describe it
without using the word listed. I was on his team
and looked at his card to try to help him,
and I started laughing too, and the rest of my
family started laughing, simply because my grandpa and I were
and thought it was funny how hard it was for
us to stop. Since this trip, my grandpa has unfortunately
passed away, but this is one of my favorite memories
(50:19):
with my grandpa, and I forgot about it until listening
to your Marshmallow episode. I'm so happy I remembered that
day on the trip. I feel like I unlocked a
forgotten memory. Thank you for talking about fluffer nutters. Oh
that's a beautiful story. I too forgot about fluffer nutters,
and it is a very funny word. It's really silly
(50:42):
fluffer nutters. I wish I had more occasion to use it.
Oh yeah, Oh, you could start using it as an
adjective or something if you really wanted to. I think
it would be very cute, but cursed, like, oh, fluffer nutters.
I I occasionally called the cats fluffer nutters. Be like,
what's up, will fluffer nutter? What are you doing? That's
(51:03):
pretty solid nickname? Yeah? Yeah, um Mary wrote you inadvertently
solved a lifelong mystery for me, albeit a rather low
key one in your episode on cash shows. My grandparents
lived in Springfield, Missouri, and we would visit them every
summer throughout my childhood. My family lived in Kansas City,
(51:24):
about a four or five hour drive away. My grandma
was a character with strong opinions and a lot of energy.
Mostly this was good. She was proud of her family
and her town and not above, let's say, embellishing some
facts to make them look better. She was always trying
something new, and some of my favorite times as a
kid happened on these visits to her house. This included
(51:44):
my introduction to Chinese food, which was almost always a
deep fried version of cashew chicken delicious. But I remember
my grandma claiming this Chinese dish was created in Springfield.
I was sort of doubtful of this. The Springfield is
not a very verse city and does not have a
large Asian population. It seemed doubtful that Chinese dish would
(52:05):
be from there. But my grandma was fiercely protective and
proud of her town, and I did not wish to
question her facts. I never really looked it up. It
was in the eighties. I was a kid in time past,
no Google back then, and it kind of fell from
my mind. But then your podcast on cash shows came on,
and wow, Grandma was right. Springfield, Missouri is indeed the
(52:26):
home of a deep fried version of cashew chicken. I
feel bad for doubting her on this, but at least
she has been vindicated. She passed away about ten years ago.
I miss her and wish I could share the fact
that her beloved hometown made an appearance on one of
my favorite podcasts. Oh, I'm glad we could help solve
(52:47):
this mystery for you. Yes, Oh my heck, Oh my heck.
I also love I love that. I love this story.
I just love the whole thing. I love that there
is a deep pride version of this. Yeah, Springfield, Missouri,
and it's called Springfield Style And apparently even people who
(53:09):
have eaten it are confused about that. It's one of
those I really am a fan. Through this show. I've
learned that in this big country there's just these super
regional dishes and I love it so much. Yeah, it's
really it's it's really amazing. Um and especially like you know,
(53:30):
it's ah, if you're if you're the kind of traveler
who just kind of like shows up and sees what
they see. Um, then you might miss some of these things.
So it's really it's really wonderful getting to do this
kind of research and talk to these kind of humans
about this sort of stuff and like, yeah, really really
dig in deep to what the local specialties are. Yes,
(53:51):
always always, always send interesting local specialties or any local
specialties are a way, They're all interesting, they are, Yes,
thanks to both those listeners are writing. If you would
like to send those to us, you can. Our email
is hello at savor pod dot com. We are also
on social media. You can find us on Twitter, Facebook,
and Instagram. Our handle at all three is at savor
(54:13):
pod and we do hope to hear from you. Savor
is production of my Heart Radio. For more podcasts my
heart Radio, visit the heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or
wherever you listen to your favorite shows. Thanks as always
to our super producers Dylan Fagin and Andrew Howard. Thanks
to you for listening, and we hope that lots more
good things are coming your way.
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