New England Apples

Lady apples

THE LADY APPLE PROVES THE ADAGE that good things come in small packages. Lady is small but intense! Its bright white flesh is crisp and juicy, with hints of citrus. Some liken it to the flavor of dried fruit. Lady’s red and green color varies depending on the amount of sunlight it gets; the green can lighten to yellow.

Lady is a late-season apple, ripening in late October into November. Because of its size, festive coloring, and ability to withstand a freeze, Lady is often featured in Christmas wreaths, and is also known as Christmas Apple. Lady is a brilliant sight in the orchard during late summer and fall, cascading in thick clusters.

Lady apple

But Lady first and foremost is a culinary apple, packing a powerful punch of sweet-tart flavor. Its small size make Lady less than ideal for cooking, but they are popular in salads, eaten fresh, and pickled sweet or sour, in the latter case sometimes served with a hot sauce.

Lady is one of the oldest known apple varieties, having been cultivated in France since the 1600s during the reign of Louis XIII. It may be even older, dating back to ancient Rome.

The term “lady” has been a popular one when it comes to naming apples. The classic 1905 volume, Apples of New York, lists Lady Finger and Lady Sweet in addition to Lady, while the more recent Old Southern Apples (2010) lists Lady Skin plus four extinct varieties (Ladies Blush, Ladies Choice, Ladies Favorite, and Lady Lyons).

The Apple Book, also from 2010, describes primarily European varieties, especially apples cultivated in the United Kingdom; it adds Lady Sudeley and Lady Henniker, named for the wives of British lords.

Pink Lady

This tiny heirloom is sometimes confused with Pink Lady, another late-season — but very new — variety. Pink Lady is a firm, crisp, tart and honey-sweet apple with a deep pink flush over a green skin. Pink Lady is an outstanding fresh-eating apple, and it is also good for cooking and in sauce. They keep several months with refrigeration.

Pink Lady, introduced in 1989, is an Australian cross of Golden Delicious and an Australian apple, Lady Williams.

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We’ve made a few alterations to this recipe credited to Martha Stewart.

Pickled Lady Apples

2 lbs Lady apples

2 c cider vinegar

1/2 c brown sugar

1/2 c granulated sugar

1-1/4 c cider or water

1-1/2 t salt

2 cinnamon sticks

1-1/2 t allspice berries

3 whole cloves

1 bay leaf

3/4 t black peppercorns

1/2 c raw cranberries

Prick apples in a few places with a fork. Bring vinegar, sugars, water, and spices to a boil in a medium saucepan, stirring until sugar dissolves.

Add apples and return to a boil. Reduce to a simmer, cover, and cook until  a fork inserted in the center of an apple meets slight resistance, about 8 minutes. Stir in cranberries, transfer to a bowl, and let cool. Cover, and refrigerate for at least 8 hours (or up to 1 month). Serve apples cold or at room temperature.

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IdaRed apples from Red Apple Farm in Phillipston, Massachusetts, July's featured variety

THERE’S STILL TIME to order the 2012 New England Apple wall calendar. Each month features a different New England orchard and apple variety, like Lady. The 12”x12” commercially printed calendar makes an ideal gift for the apple lovers on your list.

To order your calendar, send $12.95 ($9.95 plus $3.00 shipping) to New England Apples, P. O. Box 41, Hatfield, MA 01038. Make checks out to New England Apple Association. We’ll send your calendar out within 24 hours of receiving your order.

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IF YOU ARE LOOKING FOR Lady apples, visit the Farm Search page of our New England Apples website, click on “Lady,” and then “Find Orchards” at the bottom of the page.

To view photographs of more than 110 New England apple varieties, go to Apple Varieties. For a description of each one, click on the image, or watch our three-part series on New England apple varieties, featuring Chuck and Diane Souther of Apple Hill Farm in Concord, New Hampshire.

Part two, “New England Varieties—Old and New” includes Lady, and is featured here.

GoldRush were one of the last apples picked this fall at Clarkdale Fruit Farm in Deerfield, Massachusetts

GOLDEN APPLES HAVE BEEN POTENT SYMBOLS of beauty, desire, and power over centuries in cultures around the globe. They appear in fairy tales from Bulgaria, Germany, Romania, and Russia — usually stolen from a king. In Norse mythology, golden apples grant immortal life to the gods.

Golden apples figure prominently in three Greek myths, serving in one as a catalyst for the Trojan War. Eris, the goddess of discord, was the only deity uninvited to the wedding of Peleus and the beautiful sea-nymph Thetis. Outraged, she threw a golden apple inscribed “for the fairest” before the goddesses Aphrodite, Athena, and Hera.

The three beauties argued over who should get the apple, and Zeus was loathe to decide, so he appointed a Trojan shepherd boy, Paris, to answer the question instead. The goddesses tried to bribe him. Hera, queen of Olympus, told Paris she would grant him power to rule the world. Athena, goddess of war and wisdom, said she would make him a brilliant strategist in battle.

Aphrodite, goddess of love, offered Paris the love of Helen, the most beautiful woman in the world, even though Helen was married to the king of Sparta. Paris succumbed and awarded the golden apple to Aphrodite. She helped him to elope with Helen to Troy, launching the Trojan War and eventually leading to Paris’ death.

Aphrodite used golden apples again to aid the mortal Melanion, who wished to marry the brilliant athlete Atalanta. Atalanta had agreed to wed a suitor only if he managed to beat her in a foot race. With Aphrodite’s help, Melanion threw a golden apple ahead of Atalanta whenever he fell behind. Fascinated, she stopped to pick each one up, and she lost the race.

As a source of immortality, golden apples were the object of one of Hercules’ 12 labors. Hercules was commanded by Eurystheus to bring back golden apples from Hera’s Garden of Hesperides, at the edge of the world. The golden apples were guarded by a hundred-headed dragon, and by the Hesperides, the daughters of Atlas, the titan who bore the sky and the earth upon his shoulders.

After many trials, Hercules finally reached the garden, where he convinced Atlas to retrieve the apples from his daughters by agreeing to take over his burden, as Atlas was tired of holding up earth and sky. When Atlas returned with the golden apples, he told Hercules he would take them to Eurystheus himself, leaving Hercules to bear Atlas’ heavy load for eternity. Hercules agreed, but asked Atlas to take the world back for a moment while he padded his shoulders to better carry the weight. When Atlas set the apples on the ground, Hercules picked them up and ran off, carrying them back to Eurystheus.

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THE GOLDEN APPLES WE EAT TODAY may not bestow immortality, but their beauty and flavor make them divine enough to be food for the gods. Three late-season golden apples that thrive on New England soils are Golden Delicious and two of its offspring, Mutsu (also known as Crispin), and GoldRush.

Golden Delicious

While unrelated to the Red Delicious, the Golden Delicious shares its conical shape and many of its flavor characteristics. Like the Red, the Golden Delicious is a sweet, medium-to-large apple and is an excellent keeper. The Golden Delicious has a greenish-yellow skin that turns gold, and its yellow flesh is crisp and juicy. It is good in cooking, especially in pies, as its flesh holds up well when cooked. The Golden Delicious is also excellent eaten fresh and in salads.

The Golden Delicious originally was called Mullins Yellow Seedling after its discovery in West Virginia in 1890. It was renamed Golden Delicious when introduced commercially in 1916.

Mutsu, or Crispin

Mutsu, or Crispin, is an excellent dessert apple and good in salads, but it excels in pies and baking, with a sweet, light flavor when cooked, and holding its shape well. Mutsu can grow quite large (a pie made with them may require as few as three apples). Its flesh is white to pale yellow.

Mutsu has its origins in Japan, developed in 1930 from a Golden Delicious crossed with an Indo, a Japanese seedling. It was introduced in the United States in 1948.

GoldRush apple

GoldRush is a good dessert apple, juicy and honey-flavored like its Golden Delicious parent.

Golden Delicious is GoldRush’s seed parent, with crosses from several other research varieties including Siberian Crab Apple, Winesap, Melrose, and Rome Beauty. Its development began in 1945, but it took until 1973 for the first seedling to be planted at Purdue University by the cooperative breeding program of the Indiana, Illinois, and New Jersey Agricultural Experiment Stations. It was released commercially in 1993.

If you are planning a home orchard, GoldRush is considered a good choice due to its heavy bearing, disease resistance, winter hardiness, and ease of growing.

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IF YOU ARE NOT QUITE READY TO BAKE YOUR THANKSGIVING PIES, here is a recipe that you can try this weekend, using any of these golden varieties. Easy to make, it should make a delicious dessert all winter.

Apple Bread Pudding

4 slices of whole-grain bread

2 eggs, slightly beaten

1-2/3 c milk

1 t vanilla

3 New England apples, cored and thinly sliced, such as Golden Delicious, Mutsu, or GoldRush

1/4 c each white and brown sugars

1 t cinnamon

1/4 c butter, in chunks

In a medium size bowl, coarsely crumble the bread. In a small bowl, beat together eggs, milk, and vanilla. Pour milk mixture over the bread crumbs and set aside. Meanwhile, combine sliced apples, sugars, and cinnamon in an 8″ square buttered baking dish. Pour soaked bread crumbs over the apples. Dot with butter. Bake at 325° for 50 minutes or until apples are tender.

Serve warm with ice cream, hard sauce, frozen yogurt, or whipped cream.

Mount Kearsarge looms in the distance at Gould Hill Farm in Contoocook, New Hampshire

THE BIG WINNER at Mount Wachusett AppleFest’s second annual apple pie contest October 15? The Cortland. It was the only variety used by both winners: Julie Piragis of Athol, Massachusetts, in the “apple only” category, and Elinor Ives of Sturbridge, Massachusetts, whose pie was chosen as the best “apple and other” pie.

Both winning pies had outstanding crusts, were nicely spiced, and beautifully presented. Their selection affirms what chefs have known for more than a century: Cortlands make an outstanding pie. While experimenting with several apple varieties can result in unusual textures and flavors, Julie and Elinor demonstrated that a single variety of high-quality apples can carry a pie as well.

The key is to start off with the best fruit. A week after the AppleFest contest, we sampled four apple pies also made with single varieties, including Cortland. They were so good that it was hard to choose among them. But in our informal taste test, Cortlands finished last, behind McIntosh, Mutsu, and Empire (even by Gerri Griswold, who made them)!

Apples can vary from place to place, and season to season. Always begin with firm, fresh apples when making a pie, and taste them first to ensure that they are at peak flavor. Applesauce is forgiving of a less-than-perfect apple. But if you are going to the trouble of making a pie, choose the best textured, and most flavorful, apples you can find.

Cortland

CORTLANDS, OBVIOUSLY, MAKE AN EXCELLENT CHOICE. If you think only in red or green when it comes to apples, consult a Cortland to see a stunning example of something in between. A large, beautiful apple, it comes in shades of deep red with green and yellow streaks. Its sweet-tart flavor is similar to its McIntosh parent, but a little less tangy. It is less juicy than a Mac as well, and it retains its shape better when cooked.

In addition to being a great baking apple, Cortlands are excellent for fresh eating. They are famous in salads, too, as their white flesh browns slowly after slicing.

While Cortlands owe much of their great flavor to the McIntosh, their firm texture, striping, and size are attributes of their other parent, Ben Davis. The skin of Cortlands can become waxy over time, another feature of Ben Davis. Cortlands were developed at the New York State Agricultural Experiment Station in Geneva, New York, in 1898.

Here is the winning apple pie entry from Julie Piragis:

Julie Piragis’ winning apple pie

Apple Pie

Crust

2 c flour

2/3 c butter-flavored Crisco

1 t salt

7 T ice-cold water

Filling

Enough Cortland apples to fill 9-inch pie plate (heaping)

¾ c sugar

1 t salt

1 t cinnamon

dash of nutmeg

dash of salt

2 T flour

Put 2 T butter on top of apples and add top crust.

Mix one egg with 2 T Half n’ Half coffee creamer and brush finished pie. Sprinkle with sugar and bake at 350° for one hour or until crust is golden brown and apples are tender.

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The winning recipe in the “Apple and Other” category, from Elinor Ives:

Harvest Apple Pie with Oat-Nut Crust and Cinnamon Pecan Crumble

Elinor Ives’s winning apple pie

Filling

1/2 c butter

3 T flour

1/4 c water

1/2 c sugar

1/2 c packed brown sugar

1/4 t cinnamon

8 Cortland apples, peeled, cored, and sliced

Crust

3/4 c flour

1/2 c quick-cooking oats

1/4 c chopped pecans

1/4 c chopped walnuts

1 T dark brown sugar

1 T white sugar

1/2 c butter, melted 

Cinnamon Pecan Crumble

3 T granulated sugar

1 c plus 2 T flour

1/4 c plus 2 T packed dark brown sugar

1/4 t cinnamon

1/2 c butter, chilled and cut into chunks

1 c pecans

1. Preheat oven to 400°F.
2. To make filling, melt butter in an electric skillet or a saucepan large enough to hold all the apples. Stir in flour to form a paste. Add water, white sugar, brown sugar, and cinnamon, and bring to a boil. Reduce temperature, add apples, and let simmer until apples are cooked.
3. To make the crust, mix all crust ingredients together in a bowl and press into a pie plate.
4. Bake crust for 10-15 minutes or until golden brown.
5. To make Cinnamon Pecan Crumble, combine all ingredients in the bowl of a food processor until crumbly, then bake on a cookie sheet at 400°F for 10 minutes.
6. When crust is cool, spoon filling into crust and top with Cinnamon Pecan Crumble.

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    To learn more about apples, visit our New England Apples website.

Sample Hudson’s Golden Gem and other heirloom apples at Alyson’s Orchard in Walpole, New Hampshire, October 22 and 23.

A CENTURY AGO THEY WERE THE THREE MOST POPULAR VARIETIES in the Northeast. Today, Baldwin, Rhode Island Greening, and Northern Spy apples are hard-to-find heirlooms. But a number of orchards still feature them, and they are definitely worth seeking out. Visit Find An Apple on our New England Apples website to find where they are grown.

These three apples gradually decreased in popularity in the early 1900s. They presented certain challenges for growers. Northern Spies take longer than most varieties to begin bearing fruit. Rhode Island Greenings typically bear heavily only every other year. Baldwins went through a devastating freeze during the winter of 1934 that wiped out more than half their numbers. Meanwhile, varieties like McIntosh and Cortland rose in popularity.

Yet today Baldwin, Rhode Island Greening, and Northern Spy are enjoying a modest comeback, for good reason. All three apples are excellent for cooking, especially in pies. They share a New England heritage — Baldwin in Massachusetts, Northern Spy in Connecticut, the Rhode Island Greening, obviously, in Rhode Island. They each have a distinctive, sweet-tart taste that makes them excellent for fresh eating as well as cooking.

Northern Spy apple

MANY A MOTHER, GREAT-AUNT, OR GRANDMOTHER considers Northern Spy the best pie apple. It’s big, for one thing — a not insignificant virtue when trying to satiate a hungry household. Northern Spies also hold their shape while cooking, a valuable quality for cooks who like to pile their pies high.

Yet size and stability are not the main reasons generations of cooks have favored the Northern Spy. After all, Mom’s apple pie lingers on in memory due to its exquisite flavor, not its bulk.

In his classic work, The Apples of New York (1905), S. A. Beach is positively effusive about Northern Spy. Comparing it with Baldwin and Rhode Island Greening, Beach writes that Northern Spy “is superior to either of these in flavor and quality.

“The flesh is very juicy, crisp, tender, and most excellent for either dessert or culinary uses.”

Northern Spy, discovered in Salisbury, Connecticut, around 1800, was introduced commercially by H. Chapin of East Bloomfield, New York, 40 years later. Its parentage is unknown.

Baldwin apple

BALDWIN APPLES ARE EVEN OLDER THAN NORTHERN SPY, originating in Wilmington, Massachusetts, in 1740. While its parents, too, are a mystery, Baldwin has a well-documented history. Its cultivation passed from Ball to Butters to Baldwin: John Ball, owner of the original orchard; a Mr. Butters, who later purchased the land; and finally Colonel Baldwin, who gave the apple its permanent name.

Baldwins were first named Woodpeckers because the tree was popular with those birds, and then Butters, after the orchard’s one-time owner.

Introduced commercially around 1784, by 1850 Baldwins were the Northeast’s most popular apple. They remained so for more than fifty years.

Baldwins, too, are excellent in pies as well as for fresh eating; they are aromatic, with a spicy, sweet-tart flavor, and they hold their shape well.

Rhode Island Greening

RHODE ISLAND GREENINGS ARE ONE OF AMERICA’S OLDEST APPLES, dating back to the 1600s, discovered coincidentally by a Mr. Green, an innkeeper in Green’s End near Newport. Rhode Island Greenings were widely cultivated in the Northeast during the 17th century, and at the time of Beach’s book, they were “grown more extensively … than any other apple except the Baldwin.”

A source even older than Beach, Charles Mason Hovey’s 1852 The Fruits of America, writes of Rhode Island Greening, “As a cooking apple, the Greening is unsurpassed; and as a dessert fruit of its season, has few equals.”

Rhode Island Greening has a delicately tart flavor and a tender, juicy flesh that is often a lighter green in color than its skin.

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HERE’S A VARIATION ON APPLE PIE from Sally Powell of North Lebanon, Maine, who got it from her mother, Beatrice Boyce, of Elm Hill Farm in Brookfield, Massachusetts, where Sally was born and raised. At age 87, she made it just the other day, using the skillet given to her on her wedding day in 1948.

3 T butter

1/3 c sugar

1 egg

1 t vanilla

1 c white or whole wheat flour

1-1/2 t baking powder

1/2 t salt

1/4 c milk

Cream together butter and sugar. Add egg and vanilla, and beat well. Mix dry ingredients together, and add to batter alternately with milk. Set aside.

4 Northern Spy or other New England apples, cored and sliced

1-2 T butter (Sally’s comment: “Don’t be stingy with it!”)

1/3 c sugar

1 t cinnamon

In bottom of large cast iron skillet, melt butter, cover generously with sliced apples, and sprinkle with sugar and cinnamon.

Drop spoonfuls of dough on top. Leave open spaces between spoonfuls. Place skillet in oven and bake at 350° for about 50 minutes, or until apples are soft. Remove from oven, and turn over onto serving dish.

My Mother’s Apple Pudding can be eaten as is, or “covered with good old Jersey cow cream,” says Sally. She should know: Elm Hill Farm was famous for more than apples, as home of Borden’s original Elsie the Cow, a good old Jersey.

Note:  An 8″ x 8″ baking dish can be used in place of the skillet.

For variation, drizzle butterscotch or caramel sauce over the pudding.

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‘TIS THE SEASON TO SAMPLE APPLES, especially now that varieties like Baldwin, Northern Spy, and Rhode Island Greening are starting to come in. Other, more widely available late-season apples include Fuji, IdaRed, Mutsu (aka Crispin), Rome, and both Golden and Eastern Red Delicious.

We know of places to sample a variety of New England apples, old and new, in three states this month. Check your local orchards for other tastings.

October 15-16 and 22-23: Mount Wachusett in Princeton, Massachusetts, hosts its 28th annual Applefest, where a number of varieties provided by Red Apple Farm in Phillipston will be available for sampling. Among Applefest’s events is an apple pie contest Saturday, October 15, at 3:30 p.m.

October 22-23: An heirloom apple tasting event will be held at Alyson’s Orchard in Walpole, New Hampshire, from noon to 3 p.m.

October 22: Russell Powell and Bar Weeks of the New England Apple Association will make a presentation about the region’s apples at the White Memorial Conservation Center in Litchfield, Connecticut, at 2 p.m. Refreshments will include apple pie and cider.

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RICH APPLE FLAVOR TOPS THE LIST, but one thing that separates the heavenly, from the merely mortal, apple pie is the quality of the crust. Making flaky piecrust is an art that takes years to perfect. It used to be that lard was considered essential for this task, but seasoned pie chefs like Marge Cook of Cook’s Farm Orchard in Brimfield, Massachusetts, and Andrea Darrow of Green Mountain Orchards in Putney, Vermont, make a superb crust using butter.

The video below features Andrea’s methods for making a perfect crust (two other videos on the Recipes page of our website take the pie from assembly to baking).

When it comes to pie crust, practice is as important as method. But no matter how many times it takes you to become expert at working the dough, the flavor of the filling will always satisfy your audience.