Recently, when trying to create an artistic arrangement of apples for a centerpiece, I couldn’t stop comparing my attempts to the works of Paul Cézanne. He created approximately 270 still life paintings of apples and every one of them is more artistic than my attempt, but I am pretty sure my apples taste better than his did.
But I based that opinion on what I knew of apples in America. Unless you went to camp at Interlochen [Joe Maddy did not like the Johnney Appleseed song], you know about “the sun, the rain and the apple seed” and the Johnny Appleseed myth that grew up around a nursery man named John Chapman.
Understand that almost ALL American farmers raised apples, but they were grown from seeds…and while sometimes, apples were tasty, most were not. Small, usually sour and bitter apples were grown to make cider in a time when drinking water was not safe.
Chapman’s religion explicitly forbade grafting, but apparently his sect was fine with alcohol. He planted and sold thousands of seedlings to frontiersman so they could make hard cider.
It wasn’t until the middle to late 1800 that American orchards started to specialize in “eating apples.” They grafted desirable apple varieties onto root stock. Since then, plant breeders have developed amazingly tasty apples varieties.
Meanwhile, the French had been grafting apples for centuries, so Cezanne’s apples probably tasted pretty good….but I’m betting that the latest and greatest apples varieties in my centerpiece taste quite a bit better.
