See the previous discussion of rhubarb and my English wife: https://www.chowhound.com/post/rhubar...
Well, she was at it again. I got about 10kg of an excellent English cooking apple, Ballarat. Ranks second among the English as a cooker to Bramley's Seedling; Bramleys naturally and quickly turns into the ideal state in English cooked apple, namely, mush. My English wife made stewed apples with some of the Ballarat wanting to please me. She cooked the (cut small) apple pieces a lot and without water. She added brown sugar. She must think that there is something wrong with the taste of apple because she also added a lot of cinnamon. Result: like sweet baby food for children who think that apples are supposed to be medicinal.
She said that she would do something else with what she cooked. Good.
I escaped by telling her that what she made was good, but we had cultural differences.
Dla mnie nie była to zbyt dobra pustynia jabłkowa.
Whilst Bramleys are commonly available in the UK (not just in the English part of it), The other sometimes available cooking apples would be Howgate Wonder (slightly sweeter than a Bramley) and Grenadier. I've never heard of Ballarat - in fact Google gives me no help where I might buy it (except for buying a tree and growing my own).
As you say, any cooker will quickly break down to a puree, making it ideal for, say, apple sauce. I always use Bramleys for sauce (not least as they are always on sale in the supermarket). I cook them without sugar or water. I find that's fine for sauce with, say, pork or duck, or as a breakfast puree, to mix with yoghurt or stir through my muesli. I usualyl have a sauce making session a couple of times a year and freeze it in usable portions.
We don't often make apple pie but, again, that's generally what we'd use, although we may add in a few slices of an eating apple, like a Cox, for a different texture. That would probably need a little sugar. British desserts historically often contain quite a bit of spice and I'm often fine with that - but I don't like the flavour of cinnamon so would never include it with apples. By the by, the first time I tasted apple with cinnamon was on a early trip to America in the 1980/90s. I know it's also quite common in Eastern European dishes, such as strudel.
Defining a cooker apple as one which breaks down into mush is circular and cultural.This is not accurate. For example, Mcintosh, which is a fantastically wonderful dessert apple - in its season- when it is grown in the Annapolis Valley, Nova Scotia, (from where lots of apples were/are? exported to the UK. But McIntosh is grown everywhere.) It quickly turns to mush when cooked.
The selection of apples in North America has greatly reduced ever since my childhood.I can't recall the last time I saw a cooker for sale in Toronto, either wholesale or retail.
Granny Smith is looked on as an all-purpose wonder apple in Toronto and has a big part of the market. Its virtue in cooking is that it doesn't turn to mush. As for its popularity, Gresham's Law also applies to apples.
The apples were a big disappointment when I first came to New Zealand, this outpost of England from where I post now, trapped here in these Covid times. NZ can grow almost anything and is an agricultural country. I thought that I would find all those wonderful English apple varieties that I had only read about. Instead, what there are in the shops are new varieties with a big Red Delicious parent. NZ agriculture is export-driven and these ship well. Ballarat is the only cooking apple that I see. But NZ is a wonderful place for crank horticulturalists. There are a number of nurserymen who propagate many old apple tree varieties. (Although I love apples, I don't grow any because I don't want the work necessary to grow apples.)
My belief of Ballarat's popularity in the UK came from two of my English friends here. They revelled in apple mush desserts.
These friends went back to England because they thought that it was too hot in NZ! (I understand that this is a common complaint among English migrants in NZ.) They were originally Irish who had moved to England and did not understand what this thing in the sky is that is seen only during the day. Since their departure, I understand that English summers have been unnaturally hot and dry. Man plans, Gd laughs.
Thank you for the information about English cooking apples.
"Defining a cooker apple as one which breaks down into mush is circular and cultural.This is not accurate."
In the UK, a cooker will always cook down to a puree. I don't recall the McIntosh being sold here - although google tells me it used to be very popular as an eater but has now generally been supplanted by Gala and Braeburn. No doubt, there are eaters that also cook down to a puree but eaters are never recommended for that here.
A popular cooker in the USA is Rome. It is popular because it holds its shape. "The Queen of Baked Apples" and used in all sorts of cooking.
The problem in North America is that the ideal in apples doesn't have to do with an apple's taste but with its appearance. Pommelee Andersen's boobs seem to be the model: big, hard and tasteless. There is no respect for "terroir"; production considerations have ousted eating quality considerations.
So Honeycrisp, a new apple (commercial in about 2000) and in current fashion, was developed by the University of Minnesota and is great in Minnesota and the Dakotas where other apples won't grow. But it is grown in much more temperate regions and is insipid when from there.
From Wiki
"Honeycrisp apples ......by 2020 it is expected to be the third-most-grown cultivar."
Golden Delicious, which originated in Appalachia, (where else?), has been selected to a porcelain-like skin and is grown in Washington in a climate that is semi-arid and has temperature extremes. Like eating a pillow.
Braeburn is a New Zealand apple from 1950. Can be excellent.
Gala, From Wiki
The first Gala apple tree was one of many seedlings resulting from a cross between a Golden Delicious and a Kidd's Orange Red planted in New Zealand in the 1930s by orchardist J.H. Kidd. Donald W. McKenzie, an employee of Stark Bros Nursery, obtained a US plant patent for the cultivar on October 15, 1974.[4] It is a relatively new introduction to the UK, first planted in commercial volumes during the 1980s. The variety now represents about 20% of the total volume of the commercial production of eating apples grown in the UK, often replacing Cox's Orange Pippin.
"often replacing Cox's Orange Pippin." Fie! Fie! Fie!
The parents of these apples are no longer commercially available, except for the damn Red Delicious. But even Red Delicious was pretty good until Stark Bros. started fiddling with it to make it more photogenic.
Here's an amusing terroir story.
Niagara is a white vitis labrusca grape ("fox grape", think purple Concord, US$4-5, kosher) from upstate New York. A bit is grown in New Zealand- way out of terroir- and it is unpleasantly insipid. To me. One vineyard turns it into wine that is sold to China for NZD$500 a bottle. Eat your heart out Manischewitz! Turn red NZ Cloudy Bay Sauvignon Blanc, NZD35-40
I'm sure the comment that Gala has overtaken Cox is accurate. There is a very limited variety range now available in supermarkets and it's dominated by Gala and Braeburn. There will be Cox but it's almost become a niche along with the likes of Egremont Russet.
There is a huge variation in Gala. Strain, understock, terroir, etc. The best that I have had came from one particular grower near Tillsonburg, which is in south-western Ontario. Much better than Gala in New Zealand. I wouldn't expect a New Zealand apple to be so good from this location.
Somebody needs to be brought to account for the virtual disappearance of Cox's Orange Pippin.
To think of all the Cox's trees that were ripped out to be replaced. A crime!
Correction re: cookers in Toronto.
The most popular cooker in Ontario is/was Northern Spy. A great apple, but a large tree and took a long time to bear. But this wasn't the real problem with growers People didn't want it; among other things, people cooked a lot less with apples, it was not attractive. A Red Spy was developed but it lost a lot for beauty. Now Spy is scarcely seen.
I used to eat Northern Spy out of hand; a favourite. With a piece of good rye bread with caraway in the other hand. "Good rye bread". That tells you how long ago that was.
"Dla mnie nie była to zbyt dobra pustynia jabłkowa."
Ja też nie lubię bardzo słodkich deserów jabłkowych, ani też pustynie jabłkowych. ;-).
When we first moved to the US from Poland, I was put off by the amount of cinnamon and nutmeg that was in cooked apple desserts, but over the years, I have come to like the spices quite a bit. Still have a hard time with the sweetness, though.
The Australian Women's Institute is a wonderful organization with branches all over Australia. It has been going for over 100 years but is now sadly in decline. This is what feminism will do to you.
Its goals were largely political and social. It also published cookbooks. I saw in one of the cookbooks this guide to using American recipes: just reduce the sugar called for by a half.
Feminism? What on earth are you talking about?
The Institute succeeded in advancing the position of women in Australian society to the point that it became needed a lot less. It consequently lost its members and influence considerably. Of course Australia changed independently so that women- eg on sheep stations- had something else to do.
Perhaps you think "feminist" = "feminazi"? As the great American free thinker and social philosopher Samuel David said, "It ain't necessarily so."
Perhaps you shouldn't assume to know what I think a feminist is. I'm just trying to understand what feminism has to do with the sweetness of apple desserts.
I didn't assume. I asked.
The flowering of feminism led to the decline of one of Australia's great vehicles for feminism, the Women's Insitute. Compare, agaves.
I suppose that feminism's success in the USA both enabled and obliged many women to devote much less time and attention to cooking, which led to a lower general aptitude for food. Lots of sugar, like lots of salt, makes the mediocrity go down, as the domestic goddess Marie Pippins maintains. Of course, other factors were important to the development of overtly sweet apple desserts. One such factor is the industrialization of American agriculture. See, e.g. Red Delicious and Granny Smith apples. (The next scourge is going to be Honey Crisp.)
We may have a good topic for a doctoral dissertation.
Incidentally, there is a really good apple in the prairies (South Dakota) that no one hears about. It is Haralson. Also out of the University of Minnesota, 1913. It reminds me of a good Mcintosh/ Empire, but it is tart, has a crisper flesh and not spicy. It would be worth growing anywhere if the different terroir wouldn't spoil it. (I have not had its "brother", Beacon, which is supposed to be sweeter.) Honey Crisp is a much coarser apple, but it is sweet. It is brilliantly named and caught on. It caught on particularly when its characteristics were softened ("dumbed down") by being grown in a more temperate climate.
An interesting article
http://minnesotaharvest.net/apple-var...
Founded in Canada, the WI always had political motives alongside it's well known activities of cake and jam making. In the UK, many of those objectives - women's suffrage, equal pay for equal work, for example - have been achieved through the wider feminist movement. It's influence and membership is also in decline here - although my companion's best pal is chair of the local branch. It's always had the problem of being seen as a basically middle class organisation.
Apple pie at the White House
Bill Yossess was the pastry chef at the White House for Bush and Obama. He shows how he made apple pie. A very nice, articulate man. You want to do as he tells you if only to please him.
Please make his pie and tell us what you think.
Me? I don't understand what there is to like so much in American apple pie.
I love baked apples and apple crumbles.
Harters, you will be amused by what Americans- (at the top!) think are cooking apples;
at the texture of the filling.
This is the link.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WilBq...
P.S.
Yossess has a number of videos on youtube
I have seen only this one so far, in addition
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LBAkR...
Here are a bunch of Angloid rhubarb recipes from New Zealand.
They leave out a critical fact- the variety of rhubarb being used.
You'd regard variety as "critical"? Really?
Are there such distinct differences in flavour, or texture, that variety is important? Please teach me more as this has never occured to me before. I might go to the supermarket and see that the rhubarb on offer is marked as being "Timperley Early", as it often is at the moment. But I've always just used whatveer was available for whatever I intended to cook. By the by, this variety was developed in the village of Timperley, I think in the 1940s - Timperley is only 10 minutes or so drive for me.
Nice discussion on apple varieties. Yes cox orange pippin is missing these days! Problem is that it's a variety that is somewhat vulnerable, so growers will have erratic harvests. Which of course is not something supermarkets want to deal with. Hence the concentration of 'super' resistant but imho bland varieties in supermarkets. To get old world varieties I go to smaller organic shops or actual local farms here in Northern Europe. There it's still possible to get great quality old world apple varieties.
Another missing old world fruit these days are gooseberries. Wonderful to make jam with, but very hard to track down.
Anyway, as for apple tart, yes I know Americans like sweet pies! I still remember the lavish pie breakfasts while holidaying in New England. Personally I like this rustic French tart: https://www.raymondblanc.com/recipes/...
No supply issues with Cox on this side of the North Sea, when it's in season.
But I take your point about old varieties. One of my local greengrocers buys apples produced at a horticultural research facility where they grow over 100 varieties, for trials and protection of a heritage collection. In season, he can be offering 20 different varieties, most of which you will never have heard of.
Our garden produces so much Rhubarb. I am always looking for more recipes. Thank you.
Do you guys keep the skins on the apples when you make the pie? I have found that the skins are not so bad. Cooked Rhubarb and strawberries make a great treat after dinner.
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