Fewer varieties of fruit, pulses and vegetables are marketed (and therefore consumed). Of the hundreds of varieties of each of these foods that existed in Spain a century ago, only a few dozen are now known. This is an agricultural, cultural and food impoverishment parallel to the disappearance of wild biodiversity. And yet In the United States, one man managed to save at least 1,200 apple variants. specific to the area you live in.
Named Tom Brown, this retired chemical engineer, 81 years old, lives in Clemmons, North Carolina, and thanks to constant, long-term work and the typical detective, he has managed to save a rich agricultural heritage that has already been destroyed. .
Brown, for example, explains how he managed to save the Junaluska variety, which was already consumed by the Cherokee Indians in the Smoky Mountains more than two centuries ago and owes its name to the tribe’s main chief since its last disappearance. Although a favorite apple in the south of the United States, it disappeared without a trace in the 1900s.
Brown began searching for it in 2001 after discovering some references to this Junaluska variety in an old catalogue.. His investigations led him to find the approximate location of an orchard that could have supported these apple trees but was abandoned in 1859. Finally, an old woman led them to the ruins of an abandoned orchard that had been completely occupied by forest for some time.
Tireless Tom Brown is back in the area during apple-giving season and managed to identify a single Junaluska tree. He cut off the stems to take to the orchard and thus reintroduced this already lost apple.
This is one of the many stories he will treasure after he retires. a quarter of a century in search of lost varieties or is highly threatened in the region in which it lives. It has already recovered 1,200 varieties and He has the rarest 700 in his private garden.. Most have not been sold commercially for a century or more. Many have been cloned from the last known trees.
There may still be thousands of species that are endangered.
as he claims, It is possible that there are thousands of varieties still unknown to the general public., but saving them is already a race against time. People who can give clues about their whereabouts are usually in their 80s or 90s. Meanwhile, every year these trees die from storms, insect infestations or public works.
Curiously, Brown hardly knew what a traditional apple was. In 1998 he came across an exhibit of these at a historic agricultural market.. “There was a little counter with weird-looking apples in baskets,” he says.
Colors ranged from bright green to striped yellow, pink, and purplish black. Some were the size of a plum, while others were the size of a baseball. They had names like Bitter Buckingham, White Winter Jon, Arkansas Black and Billy Sparks Sweetener. While tasting, he discovered an unexpected variety of flavors and textures.
Brown tried Jonathans, whose flesh was the color of rosé wine. Rusty Coats was as smooth as a pear and sweet as honey. Mammoth Twenty Ounces were crispy with a tart, peachy finish. Semi-firm Etter’s Gold evoked bouquets of peony and grape flavors. Instead, the Grimes Golden was sweet with a hint of nutmeg and white pepper.
“Then I thought: It would be great to find an apple that no one has tasted for 50-100 years!”, and he began to search.
Didn’t there really exist so many interesting and delicious fruits? It looked impossible. Brown began researching the history of ancient Appalachian apples. And what they learned was impressive.
About 14,000 unique apple varieties were grown in commercial orchards in the United States in 1905. Many of these can be found in Appalachia, says William Kerrigan, a professor at Muskingum University in the journal Atlasobscura.
Reference article: https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/heritage-appalachian-apples
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