THE HISTORY OF THE APPLE THE FRUIT

THE HISTORY OF THE APPLE THE FRUIT

Originating in the Tien Shan mountains range where the wild apples are said to have grown in Kazakhstan and China millions of years ago. Scientists have traced the origin of apples where its wild ancestor, Malus sieversii, is a wild apple native to the mountains of Central Asia in southern Kazakhstan. It has recently been shown to be the primary ancestor of most cultivars of the domesticated apple is still found today. Apples have been part of the human diet for tens of thousands of years. There are 2,500 varieties of apples are grown in the United States. 7,500 varieties of apples are grown throughout the world.

The world’s oldest apple variety is perhaps the Annurca Apple from south Italy. Annurca apple is believed to be the one mentioned by Pliny the Elder in his Naturalis Historia as Mala Orcula before the year 79. However, it was first mentioned by the name Annurca by Giuseppe Antonio Pasquale in the year 1876.

The apple as Forbidden Fruit seems to have appeared in Western Europe at least by the 12th century. Some researchers suggest that the apple got a bad rap from an unfortunate pun: the Latin malus means both “apple” and “evil,” which may have given early Christians ideas of the call story of Adam and Eve.

Cider, for example, became a popular beverage in England in the wake of the Norman conquest in 1066, after which new apple varieties were introduced from France.
The New World settlers brought their taste for cider with them. Most colonists grew their own apples, and due to sanitation concerns, they often served a fermented cider at meals instead of water, including a diluted cider for the children. Cider became so popular that it was sometimes used to pay salaries, and Virginian statesman William Fitzhugh once remarked that the cider produced from his orchard of 2,500 trees was more valuable than 15,000 pounds of tobacco.

Apples were introduced to North America by colonists in the 17th century, and the first apple orchard on the North American continent was planted in Boston by Reverend William Blaxton in 1625. The only apples native to North America are crab apples, which were once called “common apples”.

They were cultivated in Jamestown—but not for eating.
North American apple harvesting began with the settlers at Jamestown in 1607. They brought with them seeds and cuttings from Europe, and while the original varieties planted were not all suited for cultivation in the New World, their seeds began to produce all-new varieties of American apples. Many of these apples were still fairly bitter, unlike the sweet varieties we enjoy today, but they had an important purpose in colonial society:

Thomas Jefferson was also a founding father of the Fuji.
Thomas Jefferson is not only a founding father of the United States, but he’s also known for his love of food—in fact, but he was also responsible for America’s first ice cream and some of its first pasta. And he helped bring the popular Fuji apple to the United States, however, unwittingly.
As the story goes, Edmund Charles Genet, French minister to the United States in the 1790s, gave Thomas Jefferson a gift of apple cuttings that Jefferson donated to a Virginia nursery, which then cultivated a variety of apple known as the “Ralls Genet.” In 1939, Japanese apple breeders crossed the genes from the classic Red Delicious apple variety with that of Jefferson’s Ralls Genet, resulting in the now ubiquitous Fuji apple.
It’s not actually America’s favorite fruit, but it’s grown across the country.
Despite its iconic place in American culture, the apple is no longer America’s favorite fruit. Over the last 40 years, banana consumption has surpassed that of the apple. In fact,

Americans eat an average of 28 pounds of fresh bananas per year, compared to an average of 19 pounds of apples. While bananas are only grown commercially in Florida and Hawaii, though, apples are grown in every state, making it the third most important fruit for the U.S. economy, behind grapes and oranges.
The United States is home to approximately 7,500 apple producers, which grow around 48,000 tons of apples per year, generating some $2.7 billion annually.