Now that we are planning a sustainability magazine, likely to be called Barefoot (Treading Lightly on the Planet), I’ve been reviewing my fruit-eating habits. This has in part been forced upon me by not being able to locate the fuji apples I absolutely love. In fact they are the only apples I like. I’ve never much cared for most British apples, though a colleague of mine says that I used to welcome the day by saying: “I love the taste of braeburn in the morning.” Tesco stopped stocking fujis last year, replacing them with the inferior Pink Lady apple. So terrible was the situation that I bought Tina, my wife, a fuji tree which has started bearing fruit, but not enough yet to give me a healthier diet.
On Saturday, left at home alone for a few days, I went to Tesco and decided that I’d buy a few British apples and force myself to like them. The braeburn was ok, but still not a patch on a fuji, but today I tried a Cameo (3066). It was delicious. I will find out where they are grown and buy them in bulk.
Cameo apples
February 13, 2012 by nickgibbs
It used to be that almost every family had their own heirloom variety of apple growing in the garden (old varieties are often named after the family that grew them – check if you can find a ‘Gibbs apple’ in heirloom seed lists, to see if your family apple has survived. But 1000s of species have vanished, to a large extend due to the homogenization of our food supplies.The generic varieties now available at supermarkets are quite a pitiful representation of the species, and serve mostly the interest of the growers – they are usually easy to grow and harvest and don’t bruise too easily, thus have a long shelf life. Better still if they can be stored for a year or two. Most apples you get at the store are not last year’s harvest but at least a year old, unless you buy organic, from your local farmer. In my region there are a lot of apple growers and many old variety that don’t make it to the market. They are sold at farm stores or by the side of the road. And quite honestly it is a revelation to try different ones just to realize how much variety in taste and texture has been lost. I am not a big apple eater myself, but I love apple chips, which at my house are usually snuffled up as quickly as I can churn them out. They make a great snack and preserve the vitamins and minerals. (Dehydrated apple chips, that is).
How do you make apple chips?