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NARRATED BY CECILY MILLER
INTERVIEW WITH SARAH LOHMAN, CULINARY HISTORIAN
Welcome to the Orchard & Apple banner. It features a man in colonial dress carrying a basket of apples to a cider press.
The legends surrounding the events of April 19 contain one evocative reference to Menotomy’s farmhouse orchards. Alerted to the approach of British troops and fearing violence, women and children were sent to places of safety outside the village. Many took shelter at George Prentiss’ house on a hill removed from the main road. From there, they could doubtless see the smoke of burning homes and hear gunfire. One of them – Mrs. Lydia Pierce – recalled her childhood memory from that terrible day. More than 80 years later, she described the beauty of the orchard’s peach trees in bloom. Perhaps the trees in some way offered a feeling of comfort and sanctuary during a time of terror.
17th century explorers and colonists brought English fruit trees and seeds with them to plant in New World soil. Perhaps they too were comforted by pears, plums, peaches and apples – familiar fruit in a strange world. These transplants did well. By the 1720s, Justice Paul Dudley boasted about his Massachusetts trees: “Our peaches do rather excel those of England, I have had in my own Garden seven or eight Hundred fine Peaches of the Rare-ripes, growing at a time on one tree.” He recounted the success of his neighbor’s “Bergamot Pear Tree…brought from England in a Box, about the Year 1643” which had flourished after its long voyage and would yield “twenty-two Bushels of fine Pears in one Year.”
The fruit that perhaps had the greatest success in the New World was the apple. Apple seeds carry an astonishing genetic diversity and new varieties emerged rapidly, adapting to local soil and climate conditions. Of the thousands of New World varieties, some became famous. One of the most popular was the Baldwin, originally discovered growing wild in 1740 by a farmer in Wilmington, MA. It was distributed all over New England using cuttings from the original tree by Loammi Baldwin, coincidentally a commander of the Woburn regiment during the Battle of Concord.
The Baldwin and many other varieties, including “spitters” too sour or mealy to eat, made wonderful cider. Fermented hard cider was one of the most popular beverages for colonial people of all ages. On April 18, the Committee for Safety – a core group of rebel leaders – met at Arlington’s Black Horse Tavern. Perhaps cider or the stronger proof apple brandy sparked some of their revolutionary spirit?
American apples have been on quite the journey since 1775. Sarah Lohman, food historian and author of Endangered Eating: America’s Vanishing Foods, will tell us all about it.