For the Love of British Food

Well, OK, really it is a little past the apple harvest now, and it hasn’t been the best year for a good apple harvest in some areas of the

UK. In the South, we had late frosts into April and May that killed blossom, our bee population has been hit badly by varroa and colony collapse, and a wet and windy summer did not help the fruit grow and ripen.  Other parts of the country had better weather, Cambridgeshire and Norfolk for example have had good crops this year. 

One delicious variety of British apple, the russet, has hardly been seen in the shops this year. It has an odd, rough almost scaly skin, rather than red or green and shiny but a wonderful crisp texture.  There are plenty of Bramley cooking apples in the shops, so obviously some areas of the country managed a better harvest. You could be forgiven for thinking that this is the only variety of cooking apple available, you hardly ever see other ones in the supermarkets, although they can be found in farm shops, farmers’ markets and occasionally turn up in my organic veg/fruit boxes.  My veg boxes come from a company called Riverford Farms (http://www.riverford.co.uk/).

The company started out in Devon, but have spread across the country and brought in other farms to cut down on food miles, by swapping local crops in bulk. One of these new farms is only a few miles from me at Upper Norton (www.riverfordnorton.co.uk)  near Winchester, Hampshire. Checking their website just now, I can see they have my beloved russets on sale this week! Other cooking varieties you might find are Grenadier and James Grieve. The latter I recall very well from my childhood when my Grandad had a ‘double’ tree he had grafted, so that it produced both James Grieves for cooking and I think, Coxes Orange Pippin for eating or it may have been Laxton Superb.  Apart from russets, of which there are many sub-varieties, I think I like the small, sharp and juicy Worcester Pearmains the best. Only a few years ago, it looked like our native apple varieties were disappearing under a tide of imports from Australia and South Africa. The movement for local food has started to reverse this trend.  I was also quite surprised to find that the idea of a different type of apple for cooking is less common in the USA.  

Researching this article, I found some interesting links that I’d like to share
Britain’s declining bee population 

An apple encyclopaedia

Growers determined to keep old varieties alive

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