by Imogen French

Created on: February 02, 2009

The best apple you could ever eat is the one that you have just plucked from the tree in your garden on a late summer's day; a fresh, crisp, sweet and juicy apple, bursting with its own refreshing and unique flavour.

It doesn't have to be a perfect, shiny, uniformly shaped and sized apple like you'd find on your supermarket shelf - one that has probably been grown on a large plantation, picked by a machine several weeks ago, sprayed with chemicals to preserve its shelf life, bundled into crates and flown half way around the world. It doesn't have to be one of the half dozen or so "standard" varieties that we are expected to make our limited choice from - granny smiths, golden delicious, braeburns or galas, there are thousands of varieties to choose from, many of them nameless varieties from old orchards that remain to be discovered.

Old varieties of English apples are in decline but, thankfully, now being sought out in long forgotten gardens and orchards. Some of them are being preserved, before they are lost forever to the tendency towards monoculture and uniformity brought about by the modern supermarket culture. Old orchards are being restored to their former glory and tastes of the past brought back to life.

In West Dorset, in the UK, we are lucky enough to have some long established fruit farms and old cider orchards, as well as a thriving community apple project that aims to educate local people about their old apple trees and conserve old and endangered varieties of apple (see link below). We also have regular farmer's markets where we can buy all our local apples when in season.

Cider making is a long standing tradition in this part of the country, and many of the old locals still make their own, using locally grown apples in the traditional "cheese" (the cider press), and all have their own favourite variety of apple depending on their preference for dry or sweet cider. There's nothing like a glass of cold sweet scrumpy on a hot summer day. My mouth is watering at the thought!

Some wonderful English apple varieties are Cox's orange pippin, Bleinheim orange, Worcester, Russet, Morgan sweet and of course Bramleys for cooking with. Some of the old Dorset varieties include Golden ball, Slack-ma-gurdle, Buttery door and Melcombe russet, any of which would provide a suitable ingredient for the famous and delicious Dorset apple cake, the recipe for which varies with the region and the apples.

For more information see www.appleproject.org.uk/ and www.englishapplesandpears.co.uk/

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