Happy
Saturday everyone! This week I am going
to share some information on a delicious fruit that is a favourite of many.
Apples
have been present in societies as far back as the Romans, who developed a large
number of apple varieties and then brought them to Europe, including
Britain. During Medieval times in
Europe, apples were used for cider and cooking, but by the 14th
century, Italians enjoyed apples at fancy banquets, along with other fruits, on
display in tall-stemmed, glass containers.
Apples were brought to North America by European settlers in
the 1600s and the first apple
orchard on the North American continent was planted in Boston. There was one species of apple native to North America
and that is the crab apple, which was once called the "common apple". At first, apples were grown here mostly for
cider, but soon were used for baking with some favourites including: pies,
dumplings, fritters and pancakes. There
were 17 000 kinds of apples grown in North America in the 1800s and there were
different kinds for each season, such as in summer for baking and fresh-eating,
in the fall for making cider and to store in root cellars for the winter. There are some really neat stories involving
apples within a number of mythologies as well.
In Norse (Viking)
mythology, providing apples to the gods would give that person eternal youthfulness. In Greek mythology, the apple was considered to be sacred to
Aphrodite, the goddess of love, thus throwing an apple at someone was a symbol
of a declaration of love for them. If
someone caught the apple, it was to symbolically show one's acceptance of that
love. Lastly, many of us are
aware of apples appearing in many religious traditions, often as a mystical or forbidden fruit.
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