Today even Hills has gone. The cider works have been converted into dwellings that financed the emigration of the last of the Hills family cidermakers to Australia. There is a renaissance of cider and juice-making amongst a new breed of enthusiasts, alongside the boosting of mainstream cider brands by some clever marketing as ‘over ice’ drinks. There has even been some replanting of orchards in Somerset to meet this new demand. Growing cider apples is relatively easy because you are not constrained by specifications of size and cosmetic perfection; the odd bug and blemish all go to make up the brew. Producing dessert fruit is another matter.
The southwest of England, with its mild, damp, maritime climate, has never been a good area for table fruit; the persistent humidity makes the trees susceptible to fungal diseases that sap vigour and hence yield. The main production areas in the UK are in the southeast: Kent, Sussex, Suffolk and, to a lesser extent, Hereford and Worcester.
Even in these areas it is very difficult to produce an economically viable yield of fruit that is acceptable to a buying public whose eyes have been trained by supermarket displays of cosmetic perfection. Despite numerous attempts to develop more holistic, less intrusive approaches, even most organic growers resort to regular sprays of sulphur and sometimes copper oxychloride (allowed under organic rules) to control fungal disease. As Paul Ward, our most successful UK apple grower says, ‘It’s a flawed system, but a good bit less flawed than the non-organic one.’ Even Jeremy Saunders, perhaps our most determinedly idealistic supplier, growing on a sunny southern slope in the most favoured part of Devon and combining fruit with chickens ranging underneath, has found that he cannot make a living without regular spraying. As things stand at the moment it is either pragmatic compromise or imports, so we go with the compromise.
Despite the nation’s professed enthusiasm for heritage varieties and local food, the stark reality for most commercial producers is that if it is not nigh on perfect in appearance, it will not sell. Pile a fruit bowl with a mixture of fruit of different grades and I guarantee that, unless your household is starving, or made up of hardcore eco-warriors, any blemished specimens will be left to wither at the bottom. That is why there are so few orchards left in the UK and why the huge majority of our fruit, organic or not, is imported. Pears, being early flowering and hence susceptible to frosts, are possibly even more difficult to grow commercially in the UK than apples. Plums and damsons fare a little better but are still going the same way as apples. Our native varieties, many of which produce plums of great flavour but poor shelf life, are again being slowly forced out by the more reliable, huge plums on steroids, mainly from Spain that have a longer shelf life.
The apple varieties that combine eating quality with a reasonable degree of disease resistance and suitability to our climate are (in rough order of maturity): Discovery, Early Windsor, Red Windsor, Worcester, Falstaff, some Russets, Cox (probably the most difficult to grow), Red Pippin and Spartan. The Dutch do well with Elstar, which tastes very similar to Cox and is a good keeper but much easier to grow. The only hope of growing quality fruit without copper and sulphur (the Holy Grail for all committed top fruit producers) is through using modern varieties, and there are now some very promising ones coming from Eastern Europe (Evita and Colina), France (Cox Royal – a Cox cross) and the USA (Crimson Crisp).
Apples vary hugely in their keeping qualities. Some late-cropping varieties such as Russets will improve in store and can be kept successfully in ambient conditions until Christmas, but generally the commercial practice is to keep fruit in cold storage at 1°C and high humidity. Fruit stored beyond January will normally also have the benefit of controlled or modified atmosphere storage. This means the apples are kept in a sealed store, where the oxygen levels are reduced and CO2 levels rise as the fruit respires. The idea is to put them to sleep without killing them and, just like anaesthesia, it requires careful monitoring and control to avoid disaster. If all goes well, the reduction in the respiration rate of the fruit can double or even treble shelf life. It is even possible to hold some varieties in reasonable condition right through to the start of the next season.
Horrified at this ‘unnatural’ and prolonged storage? Don’t be Luddite; as most affluent people view a 52-week supply of crunchy apples as a prerequisite of acceptable life, and as all apples in the northern hemisphere are picked between July and October, the only alternative is shipping fruit from the southern hemisphere (normally Argentina, Chile, New Zealand and South Africa), where it is harvested in March and April. Intelligent use of controlled-atmosphere technology is far more energy efficient. It can even save energy compared to straight refrigeration because the fruit can sometimes be kept at a higher temperature. And don’t be taken in by spurious research sponsored by southern-hemisphere fruit growers; there are almost no circumstances where shipping long distance is environmentally less damaging than storage.
Storage and preparation
Ripening starts on the tree and continues at a rate determined by temperature and atmosphere (particularly concentrations of oxygen, carbon dioxide and the natural ripening agent, ethylene, which is produced by the fruit itself). The aim of storage for the producer should be to deliver fruit that reaches perfection in your fruit bowl. Once you get the fruit home there is, unfortunately, no doubt that long-stored apples will deteriorate faster and have a shorter window of perfection in your fruit bowl than freshly harvested ones. Some of the early-season varieties of apple, particularly Discovery, are at their best for only about a week. As with all fruit, smell is a good indicator of flavour and ripeness. For the main varieties, ripening is all about the conversion of starch to sugar; they get sweeter up to a point, then the texture dives and they lose moisture, becoming soft and woolly. I suspect that apples, and particularly pears, are more often than not eaten well before their optimum ripeness.
Unless your fruit is becoming overripe, or you are not planning to eat it for a week or more, it is best to keep it in a fruit bowl at room temperature; you will lose much of the flavour and virtually all the perfume if you eat it straight from the fridge. Check the smell and firmness from time to time and try to eat the apples while they are at their best.
This contribution came from Sarah Pope, who works in the kitchen. It’s lovely – which has been said about Sarah herself!
Serves 8
700g Bramley apples, peeled, cored and sliced
1 tablespoon melted butter
2 tablespoons caster sugar
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
For the base:
100g plain flour
50g butter
50g caster sugar
40g amaretti biscuits
To make the base, put all the ingredients in a food processor and process to a fine breadcrumb consistency. Press into a 23cm loose-bottomed tart tin. Arrange the apples in an attractive pattern on top. Brush them with the melted butter and sprinkle with the sugar and cinnamon. Place in an oven preheated to 200°C/Gas Mark 6 and bake for 30–40 minutes, until the apples are golden brown. Serve at room temperature.
Apple, Potato and Cheese Casserole
This recipe was given to us by Sharman, who