A fruit with thousands of named varieties that markets have narrowed to a handful, and one where cooking behaviour splits cleanly between those that hold and those that collapse.
Where it comes from
The domestic apple descends from Malus sieversii, a wild apple still growing in the mountains of Kazakhstan, and travelled west along the Silk Road, crossing with European crab apples on the way. Almaty’s name means roughly ‘father of apples’, and the forests around it are the species’ home.
Apples do not come true from seed — a pip from a good apple makes a tree bearing something else, usually worse. Every named variety is a clone, propagated by grafting, and some of them are centuries old and genetically identical to the original tree.
Varieties
- Bramley and other cookers — High acid, low sugar, and the flesh collapses to a purée. Sauce, and the filling of a British apple pie.
- Firm dessert apples — Braeburn, Granny Smith, Boskoop. Hold their shape in a tart, where a cooker would turn to liquid.
- Sweet eating apples — Gala, Fuji, Golden Delicious. Low acid, and they cook to something flat and sugary.
- Russets — Rough brown skin, dense, nutty, low water. Excellent with cheese.
- Cider apples — Bitter and tannic, close to inedible raw. Grown only for fermenting.
- Crab apples — Small, hard, very high in pectin. Jelly, and a setting aid for other jams.
In the kitchen
Whether an apple holds its shape is a property of the variety, not the recipe. A tarte tatin needs a firm apple; an apple sauce needs a cooker. Substituting one for the other is the commonest failure.
Apples brown because a damaged cell releases an enzyme that oxidises phenols. Acid slows it and heat stops it — lemon juice works, and so does dropping slices into water.
Apple skins carry most of the pectin, which is why an apple sauce made with the skins on sets and one made without stays loose.
Choosing and keeping
Apples give off ethylene, which ripens everything near them. Useful for hard avocados, ruinous for potatoes and leafy greens.
Cold and slightly humid is right. Most supermarket apples have already been in controlled storage for months.
Dishes with apple
LeivasuppSweet purée of dark rye bread with apple, cinnamon and whipped cream.RomaniaPlăcintăfilled pastry with apple, sweet cheese or pumpkin
Tufahijapoached apple stuffed with walnuts, topped with whipped creamGermanyApfelweinTart cider poured from a stoneware jug into ribbed glasses.United KingdomSnakebiteHalf lager and half cider, often reddened with blackcurrant cordialSlovakiaŽemľovkaBread pudding layered with apples, cinnamon and curd, then bakedSaudi ArabiaSaudi champagnesparkling apple juice with mint, lemon and sliced fruit, poured at restaurantsApple is tagged on 33 dishes from 27 countries in the atlas. These notes are written from general knowledge and carry no per-fact citation — see About.