I love autumn. There is nothing as beautiful and exhilarating as fall in New York. I know it’s getting colder and in recent years New York has turned into Seattle junior(rain, rain and more rain), but I still feel lucky because I get to experience seasonal change. I love the fact that the leaves are changing colors and I enjoy the slight chill in the air. Burning leaves and hot cider are comforting and remind me of simpler times. Fall makes me feel young again, it takes me back to the beginning of a new school year when you thought that good things were about to happen and anything was possible.
Apple picking is part and parcel of that good feeling so this year a few of my close friends and I decided to recapture the feelings of years gone by. We took a road trip to Warwick, New York and visited Masker Orchards, a 95 year old orchard located on 200 acres of land. This is a wonderful place to visit in the fall. Not only can you pick apples but you can pick up a pumpkin, go through the apples maze, go for a pony ride, buy some apple butter and honey and enjoy some hot apple cider, homemade apple pie with fresh ice cream from the creamery down the road and my favorite old fashioned donuts.
History
Since we are talking about apples and they are so popular in New York I wondered where they came from and much to my surprise they didn’t originate in North America. The apple tree originated in the mountains of Central Asia, in southern Kazakhstan (that’s where Borat’s from, right?), Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Xinjiang, China. This is where its wild predecessor is still found today.
The apple tree was probably the earliest tree to be cultivated and its fruits have been improved through selection over thousands of years. Alexander the Great is recognized for finding dwarfed apples in Asia Minor in 300 BCE. Winter apples, picked in late autumn and stored just above freezing, have been an important food in Asia and Europe for millennia, as well as in Argentina and in the United States since the arrival of Europeans. Apples were brought to North America with colonists in the 17th century and the first apple orchard on North America was said to be near Boston in 1625. In the 20th century, irrigation projects in Washington state began and allowed the development of the multibillion dollar fruit industry, of which the apple is the leading species.
Apples appear in many religious traditions, often as a mystical or forbidden fruit. The problem is that the word "apple" was used as a generic term for all strange and mysterious fruit, other than berries, but including nuts, as late as the 17th century. For instance, in Greek mythology, the Greek hero Heracles, as a part of his Twelve Labours, was supposed to travel to the Garden of the Hesperides and pick the golden apples off the Tree of Life growing at its center.
The Greek goddess of dissonance, Eris, became resentful after she was left out from the wedding of Peleus and Thetis. In retribution, she tossed a golden apple inscribed Kalliste, sometimes transliterated Kallisti, 'For the most beautiful one', into the wedding party. Three goddesses claimed the apple: Hera, Athena, and Aphrodite. Paris of Troy was appointed to select the recipient. After being bribed by both Hera and Athena, Aphrodite tempted him with the most beautiful woman in the world, Helen of Sparta. He awarded the apple to Aphrodite, thus indirectly causing the Trojan War.
Thus, in ancient Greece, the apple was thought to be sacred to Aphrodite, and to throw an apple at someone was to symbolically declare one's love; and similarly, to catch it was to symbolically show one's acceptance of that love (I need to try that, whacking someone with an apple, oh boy takes me back to grade school when the boys hit you if they liked you).
Although, the forbidden fruit in the Book of Genesis is never identified, the popular Christian belief is that it was an apple. During the Renaissance many painters added elements of ancient mythology and beliefs to their art which may be the reason why the forbidden fruit in the Garden of Eden was depicted as an apple.
There are more than 7,500 known cultivars of apples which resulted in a range of desired characteristics. Cultivars vary in their yield and the ultimate size of the tree (Masker trees are just the right size for those of us who are pint sized).
We didn’t know any of this when we went to pick apples all we knew was that it was a beautiful drive up to Warwick. Although, it was muddy because of the rain we picked a beautiful sunny day to hike among the apples. We filled our bags, ate a lot of apples, watched some people picnic, climb trees and play baseball with apples (I wish I had brought my tennis racket, we could have had apple sauce). We even traveled to another orchard for a wine tasting (it was an adventure but the wine was not pleasing, drink at your own risk).
Happy Hunting,Cin
