THE first 117 kilograms of the new season’s heirloom apples were picked at Borrodell orchard at Orange on Sunday and on the fruit stand at Granny Smith yesterday morning and the great, blood-red Tydeman’s Early Worcester had — by this evening — all but sold out. Granny Smith is again delighted to confirm that ours is the only grocery in Sydney to market Borry Gartrell’s and Gaye Stuart-Nairne’s heritage fruit, and our First Bite loyalty card members enjoy a five percent price advantage on the purchase of these first of the 2013 season apples. This gives these customers ‘two bites’ at this fruit, as they also accrue points on purchase.

The range in this first picking includes some early Cox’s Orange Pippin – the world’s finest dessert apple – and Bramley’s Seedling, which is considered to be the finest English-style cooking apple. (English and French cooking apples are distinctly different, but that’s for a later post.) We also have the big, green, delicious saucing apple, Dr Hogg, the red-flushed green 1740s English Blenheim Orange, and the French-bred King of the Pippins, or Reine de Reinettes, from the 1770s. But it is a wonderfully crisp, pale green, ‘five crown’ — or pointed — apple known only as ‘Saint Willy’ that is the most intriguing. It was given to Borry as a seedling. It has grown solidly and cropped very well, and Borry says that he decided to call it Saint William as Willy seemed undignified for such a splendid fruit. It is sharp and smart to the palate as fresh fruit and we imagine that it will work magically as pie-fruit when it ages.

Borry says that the Borrodell orchard, on the northern slope of Mount Canobolas, has endured a difficult mid-summer with very high temperatures. As a result, the fruit is smaller this season but, like grapes, the trees’ thirst for water on the hottest days seems to have enhanced the apples’ flavour.

For the aficionado, here’s the detail of the first delivery:

Blenheim Orange
Origin: England, United Kingdom, c.1740
Parentage yet to be identified
Colour: Red flushed green
Type: eating fresh, cooking. Cooked fruit yields a stiff puree.
Flavour: nutty, sweet

Bramley’s Seedling
Origin: Nottinghamshire, England, United Kingdom, 1837
Parentage yet to be identified
Colour: light green
Type: the definitive English cooking apple – one of the world’s finest culinary apples
Flavour: sharp

Cox’s Orange Pippin
Origin: England, United Kingdom, 1825
Bred from what is believed to be Ribston Pippin
Colour: red and orange flushed
Type: eating fresh, juicing and as a dessert apple as it ages. Cox’s Orange Pippin is regarded as the world’s finest dessert apple.
Flavour: highly aromatic

Dr Hogg
Origin: Sussex, England, United Kingdom, c.1880
Bred from a sport in an estate orchard at Leonardslee and named in honour of the Scottish pomologist Dr Robert Hogg, who wrote The Hereford Pomona, a history of Herefordshire and west country apples.
Colour: light green
Type: cooking apple. Large.
Flavour: sharp

Irish Peach
Origin: Ireland, c.1820
Parentage yet to be identified
Colour: rose-red flushed and smooth green
Type: eating and dessert apple. Doesn’t keep long as a fresh eating apple.
Flavour: sweet

King Cole
Origin: Australia, 1912
Bred from Jonathan and what is believed to be Dutch Mignonne
Colour: smooth-skinned bright red with some green
Type: dessert apple, crisp and sharp
Flavour: sweet-sharp

King David
Origin: Arkansas, United States of America, c.1890
Bred from Jonathan or Winesap and Arkansas Black
Colour: red with green striping
Type: eating, dessert, juicing and cider apple
Flavour: sweet-sharp

King of the Pippins / Reine de Reinettes
Origin: France, c.1770
Parentage yet to be identified
Colour: red, russet, orange and light green striping
Type: eating and dessert apple. Keeps shape when cooked.
Flavour: sharp-sweet, juicy. Sweetens with age.

Saint Willy / Saint William
Origin: given to Borry Gartrell at Borrodell orchard, Orange, NSW, as a seedling
Parentage yet to be identified
Colour: pale green with demure rose flush
Type: eating and dessert apple
Flavour: sharp, crisp

Tydeman’s Early Worcester
Origin: Kent, United Kingdom, 1945
Bred from McIntosh and Worcester Permain
Colour: red flushed dark red
Type: eating fresh
Flavour: sweet

More information
See the excellent Orangepippin website.

GRANNY Smith’s customers have bought more than one tonne of heirloom apples since the 2012 season began in February. What fantastic support for food diversity and choice. At the start of June our till record showed that our customers in the past four months have bought 1074 kilograms of heirloom apples, which are supplied to us by Orange orchardists Borry Gartrell and Gaye Stuart-Nairne. This season we’ve been able to offer the delicious and pretty tiger-striped Gravenstein, Denmark’s national apple, bred in 1797; Cox’s Orange Pippin, the 1820 English-bred apple by which all others are judged for sweetness; Five Crown or London Pippin, an apple with five distinctive points at its base, bred before 1580; Bramley’s Seedling, a renowned ‘cooker’, bred in England in 1837; Mutsu, a large Golden Delicious-like apple bred in Japan in the 1930s; Sydney’s own Granny Smith, from the 1860s; Black Democrat, the crisp ‘eater’ that gave Tasmania its reputation as the ‘apple isle’, bred in the 1890s; Lord Lambourne, Crofton and Rome Beauty, the lusciously attractive gentle red and green ‘eater’ raised in Ohio in 1816;. But it was another North American heirloom that was the season’s stand-out among our customers: Stayman’s Black Winesap. This wonderful ‘black-red’, smaller fruit was in great demand. ‘It’s incredible how different one varietal can be from the next,’ says San Francisco grocer Sam Mogannam in his book, Eat Good Food, ‘not just in size and colour, but also in density, acidity, sweetness and aroma. They can be tart or sweet, crisp or buttery, honey-flavoured or bracing, and everything in between.’ Granny and Sam agree: ‘Buying and eating heirloom fruits is the best way to ensure their future availability.’

GREAT English ‘cookers’ Bramley’s Seedling and Dr Hogg are in the next crop of heirloom apples from Borrodell orchard at Orange that will be in-store at Granny Smith from tomorrow, Monday 20 February 2012. Read about the heritage, styles, flavours and uses of these rare and wonderful fruits in Apples with attitude, our newsletter emailed to our customer list yesterday. You can also read about the extraordinary work of nineteenth century English editor Dr Robert Hogg to preserve apple knowledge. As part of our promotion of Borry Gartrell’s and Gaye Stuart-Nairne’s apples, anyone liking us on Facebook this week will be in a draw to win five kilograms of mixed apples and Jamie Oliver’s latest book, Jamie’s 30-Minute Meals. The chance to win closes on Saturday 25 February. The winner will have to collect the two prizes.

WE’VE been asked recently for a few foods that are out of season. The first was a request for apples. Organic apples aren’t as industrially treated  – waxed and cold-stored – as conventional apples tend to be, so are much more seasonal. Lucky us for when they’re in season…but not yet: those little green apples are busy growing, ready for plucking come late summer. I’ve only recently pruned dwarf gravensteins and cox’s orange pippins that are espaliered in my South Turramurra backyard, removing a few young apples from each of the heavier clusters to leave perhaps just a pair to develop through the summer.

Then we had a request for custard apples, which also are out of season. Ditto brussels sprouts and horseradish. These questions make me realise that one thing that has deteriorated with the rise of industrial farming, globalisation and the use of preserving chemicals and cold storage in the food business is our awareness of the seasons and knowledge of the fruits and vegetables that are native to, say, summer, or winter. It’s important for our local farmers, particularly, that we eaters should try to become ‘literate’ about food seasonality. If it’s in season then it’s fresh, and better for us. It’s also more likely to be produced locally, which means you’re directly supporting local farmers when you buy food that’s truly ‘new season’. Our website’s seasonal guide can help to distinguish between what’s real and what might be said to be ‘in season’ but which has just emerged after 10 months in cold storage.

- Peter Kenyon