Alphabe Thursday which is hosted byJenny Matlock has come around again and is back to letter A. What better A to start with than A for APPLE
The above APPLES are ones I photographed on a visit to West Dean Gardens. They grow over 150 varieties at West Dean, and usually the last weekend of September each year they have an APPLE AFFAIR. Here you can find displays, talks, walks and stalls selling everything and anything to do with APPLES including cookery demonstrations.
This brings me on to APPLE recipes of which there are probably more than the variety of APPLES grown at West Dean. I Googled “old-fashioned” APPLE recipes and came across two blogs that I follow withAPPLE recipes.
The first was Old Fashioned Apple Jelly on The Cottage Small Holder, and on the Lavender and Lovage blog, I found a post about Apple Day and an absolutely delicious recipe for Apple and Dorset Blue Vinny Scone Bread - now that is definitely something I will be making shortly.
This poem is by Laurie Lee and called APPLES
Behold the apples’ rounded worlds:
juice-green of July rain,
the black polestar of flowers, the rind
mapped with its crimson stain.
The russet, crab and cottage red
burn to the sun’s hot brass,
then drop like sweat from every branch
and bubble in the grass.
I, with as easy hunger, take
entire my season’s dole;
welcome the ripe, the sweet, the sour,
the hollow and the whole.
Finally, some interesting facts about APPLES
- A boatbuilder’s superstition holds that it is unlucky to build a boat out of wood from an apple tree because this wood was previously used to manufacture coffins
- Since 1990, Apple Day has been held across the UK and beyond, on October 21. This is a festival created by charity Common Ground.
- Irish folklore claims that if an apple is peeled into one continuous ribbon and thrown behind a woman’s shoulder, it will land in the shape of the future husband’s initials
- According to popular legend, upon witnessing an apple fall from its tree, Isaac Newton was inspired to conclude that a similar ‘universal gravitation’ attracted the moon toward the Earth. (This legend is discussed in more detail in the article on Isaac Newton).
- In the 19th and early 20th century, and 21st century United States, Denmark and Sweden, a fresh, polished apple was a traditional children’s gift for a teacher.
- The Apple Wassail is a traditional form of wassailing practiced in cider orchards of South West England during the winter. The ceremony is said to ‘bless’ the apple trees to produce a good crop in the forthcoming season.
- “An apple a day keeps the doctor away” is a popular saying, the apple obviously symbolizing health, but also the advantages of eating fresh fruit.
