Apples - les Pommes

I picked the last of this year's apple crop a couple of days ago. We have 7 varieties of apples in the orchard, but not all of them cropped this year*.

From left to right they are Reinette du Canada, Reine des Reinette, Golden Delicious, Granny Smith, Melrose.

Reinette du Canada appears to be some sort of russet, judging by the rough skin. The fruit is wider than it is high, and remains tart. They are the last of our apples to fully ripen, perhaps because they produce the largest fruit. Last year this one didn't crop at all, so it will be interesting to see what it does next year. An old variety, apparently it keeps extremely well.

Reine des Reinette is indeed the queen of French cooking apples, favoured by many big name chefs. It's a soft sweet apple eaten fresh, an old variety, yellow, streaked with red on more exposure to the sun. Not a great keeper, but long enough lasting that it isn't a mad panic to use them all up.

Golden Delicious, known simply as Goldens in France, are ubiquitious, by far the most popular apple here. Three of the 10 apple trees we have inherited in the orchard are Goldens. Outside of France they are greeted with scorn and derision because of their palid unappetising appearance and their tendancy to go disgustingly floury with age and cold storage. Fortunately, I knew from buying them from an organic grower when we lived in London, that a fresh Golden Delicious is a completely different creature to one purchased in the supermarket, and so I look upon our Goldens reasonably kindly.

Young Granny Smiths on the tree back in June.

Granny Smith is an Australian variety, so it is rather nice to find it in the orchard. This is the apple of my childhood. Red apples were not for me - never crisp or sour enough. The archetypal apple green coloured Granny Smith keeps well and cooks well too. According to this excellent website, the red blush on our ripe Granny Smiths in the top photo is typical of those grown in central France, where the rather cool nights cause the apple to gain a reddish tinge.

Melrose keeps very well and is a great favourite with the birds. I pick them over a period of about 6 weeks, hoping, but not succeeding, to keep ahead of the wildlife. They start off somewhat unripe, but by the last couple of weeks are just about the perfect apple, sweet and crisp. I'd never heard of this variety before we inherited this tree in the orchard, but on looking it up I see it is an American variety.

The locally popular organic apple juice from the Durand's
orchard, for sale in Vival, one of Preuilly's mini-supermarkets.

Apples do very well around Preuilly and there are several commercial orchards. You can pick your own at one on the road to le Grand Pressigny, and the people who own one on the road to Loches make the most delicious organic apple juice, which is for sale in our local supermarket. Guy Durand, the orchardist, tells me that he wants to retire, and he has put the farm up for sale. The business is expanding and I would guess is a very good opportunity for anyone who wants to take it on.

Susan

*The two trees that didn't produce a crop this year, although they cropped well last year, are Jonagored and Ballerina.