21st October - Apple Day

Apple Day was started some years ago by the hugely impressive Common Ground

http://www.commonground.org.uk/

I have enormous respect for this organisation and the work it does to impress how wonderful the local is. I have their "England in Particular" book, which is a wonderful read, throughly recommended. I'm hoping to get hold of their "Apple Source" book too. The work they do on promoting the local, regional and national identity of all sorts of things is vitally important to everyone's future - have a look at their website and be inspired!

Common Ground's rules for local distinctiveness:
http://www.commonground.org.uk/distinctiveness/d-rules.html

Back to the apples then....... We'll be having an apple pudding tonight in honour of Apple Day, and I've given my daily stir to the bucket of cottage cider that is brewing away quietly in a corner by the Rayburn. There were few trees at our house when we moved here - two small conifers by the front door (gone within a week), three lilacs, two white and one purple; one of the whites is a double one, and a huge conifer up in what is now the chicken run, which soon went too, made into logs for the fire. I listed all the trees I had planted here since we came, and it came to over 50, but has gone up even more now. Several of those are apple trees. I'm afraid I tend to choose my apple trees for their names - wonderful , old, evocative names, but I try and keep them to their pollinating groups too for successful fruiting, and as local as possible. So far I have the following: Sussex Duck's bill (aka Winter Queening) - a late fruiting eating/cooking apple, nice crisp clean taste; Devonshire Quarrenden - lovely pinky red apple, best from the tree, doesn't keep, pink flushed under the skin, small fruits, early, beinneial bearer (might be able to address this with pruning, I read somewhere, but need to do more research); Yarlington Mill - very local old cider apple; Sops in Wine - another cider apple; Slack ma Girdle - bought for the name, another old cider apple. I reckon I can fit another couple in; I'd like a cooking apple - I tried some Lane's Prince Albert from a roadside table in a nearby village - that's a nice one; and I'd like Tom Putt - very local, reputed to have been bred in a village some 8 miles distant, it's a cooking/cider appple.
I get given a lot of apples by folks who don't need them; some I go and collect myself from their trees too, or find in car parks, out in the lanes on wild trees, or escaped cultivars, by peoples' driveways with "help yourslef" in felt pen on an old bit of cardboard box....... it's a rare thing for me to ahve to pay for apples this time of year, which is lovely. I bring them home, sort them and wash them if needed. Best are kept for eating, windfalls go for cider/wine, the big/cooking apples are bottled or pureed and frozen, some amde into pies for the freezer, frozen uncooked to go straight into the oven.
I am making a proper wooden apple rack for next year, so I will be able to store some properly;I need to research the instructions for this, but will be an interesting project, and I'll stencil the names on the sides too, to add a bit of interest.
So - revel in your apples today, make the most of your native apples, demand them in the shops, buy them when you see them, use them, plant them, talk about them - they're the best apples in the world.
To end, here's my recipe for Doset Apple cake - serve with a girt dollop of double cream!LOL

8oz self-raising flour
4oz butter
4oz sugar
About 1 /2 lb or so of apples, peeled cored and diced
1 large egg, beaten

Prepare a cake tin by greasing and flouring _ I use a round sandwich tin. Rub butter into flour, add sugar and chopped apple, mix well. Mix to a stiff dropping consistency with the beaten egg, add a little milk if needs be, but not too soft a dough. Turn into tin, bake until risen and golden brown - about 30 - 40 minutes in a hot oven. cool on a wire rack. Freezes well.

Enjoy your apples! :)