You don’t think of apples when you think of South West France — or at least I didn’t. I’m English, as are apples. I grew up eating apples from the trees, and when I moved to the US I pretty much stopped buying the mealy things they called apples in the supermarket except to cook. In graduate school Walter took me to a place he had discovered where wild apple trees grow, and we found the ugly apples used as pollinators in the orchards where I had worked in southern England. Like the pollinator grapes I ate when I worked on the grape harvest, they were the best. Fruit that doesn’t keep became my favorite right there. But that requires access to an orchard or farm stands.
When I was a teen, I spent several years picking apples in an experimental agrochemical orchard near where I grew up. It was called “Plant Protection,” which is a clue as to what kinds of chemicals they were spraying right before we went in to harvest, but in our innocence it seemed pretty idyllic. Every morning a minibus picked up people from our housing estate and a few places on the way to join people from other busses and professional migrant workers to spend a day in the orchards. It was hard work going up and down ladders with panniers on our backs, but on perfect fall days filled with birdsong and women’s conversation and laughter, I loved it. (On chilly, rainy days not so much.) Earlier in the year we picked gooseberries, currents (which is not fun) and then, strawberries; then in the fall just before school started (and after), apples. I don’t want to know what they had sprayed on those apples before we ate them, but they tasted soooo good. Even week-old apples taste sad to me after that.
Then, years after I arrived in the US I stopped at a roadside farm stand in central New York on my way back to New Jersey and, on a whim, I bought and ate a Honey Crisp produced in the experimental orchards at Cornell. I walked into a meeting of graduate students three hours later with my mouth still singing and exclaimed that I had just eaten the most amazing apple that really was perfectly described by its name. My colleague and grad student from Minnesota delightedly claimed the Honey Crisp as a local native from her childhood. She and I celebrated the first appearance of them every Fall, and created a following amongst those who laughed at us until they tried them! Back when they did not last the winter and you had to eat them within the harvest window I was a devote, but those originals are hard to find now, at least in New Jersey. Even so-called health conscious supermarkets now only sell pseudo honey crisps sealed in plastic bags, cross-bred to be long lasting and losing the honey taste in the process. Once again I basically stopped eating apples, in or out of season.
Then I moved to France.
Having established myself as an apple snob, imagine my surprise when Walter insisted we go to Jangopom (yes, they do have a website). First I tried their organic apple juice. Then their organic apples. Some are recommended for pies, and some for eating as soon as you get in the car. They also sell apple jam, jelly, “paté,”and compote (several kinds including red). Relatedly, there is miel de pommier, honey made by their pollinator bees (and miel de châtaignes from local chestnut trees). Then there’s apple vinegar, and quince (“coings”) vinegar, along with apple and quince sauce, quince jelly, quince paté, And did I mention apple juice, in several varieties? While I love apples, I have less need for apple products and I generally don’t like apple juice, but theirs really is an exception. We went on Monday to buy more juice and picked up some of the apples that they had stored since Fall (Juliet, Story, and Goldrush). By Tuesday night, one of Andrée’s team had made her a lovely looking apple tart.
We are in a constant battle to keep Andrée hydrated because she doesn’t like water — and giving her wine all day is not a great idea longterm. But she loves apple juice, so winter and summer there are several bottles in her fridge (we buy it by the case). An added bonus is you can’t taste electrolyte tables should someone sneak one in o a bottle in the hottest part of summer. Jangopom for the win.
This post is not an ode to Jangopom, although our visit Monday is what prompted it. I want to give a shout out to the French apple varieties I am still learning to recognize (see the gallery at the end of this post). But also to use this as a starting place for what I need to learn to steward the apple trees in our own orchard. I won’t be here for the harvest this year, but I still need to learn how to prune and protect them from the many bugs and molds that challenge them. And I am told I also need to learn how and when to thin the fruit so what is left grows larger and doesn’t tax the trees so much—just like cutting the excess grape canes to concentrate energy into those that remain and so increase the yield.
The trees at Jangopom are much younger than ours, and they are all trellised. And cut back brutally in the spring. Clearly I need to become more comfortable with this way of attending to the bushes and trees here, although it is too late to do this to our orchard, thankfully! I grew up pruning roses, and when my brother-in-law walked me through the orchard and talked about what I needed to do to open up the center and crowns of the tress it was the same principle, which I recently learned applies to grapes as well. I do not have the equipment to prune the old apple trees, but I can try to support the young trees in the second small orchard.
But first, I was wrong about the taste of apples in South West France, and about their growing habits. I do love to be educated! A very informative website that identifies all of the fruits grown in the area observes that “With 5,300 hectares devoted to its production, the apple is the emblem of our department, with Tarn-et-Garonne being the country’s leading apple producer.” They add that “50 shades of apples… Chantecler, Gala, Reinette, Arianne… all varieties of apples, old, rustic and new, are grown in our orchards, in integrated or organic farming.” So that explains Jangopom and the trees in our old and new orchards. I am even more excited to make them healthy and productive of fruit we can eat before the critters get it, or add to a barrel to make eau de vie.
So, varieties. In the fall Jangopom has dozens of varieties in big bins lined up on both sides of the covered patio, On Monday they had a bin of sweet, juicy, and crunchy Juliet, the one everyone knows even in the US (I assume it must keep and travel well). I think we have one of those in the main orchard. Jangopom also had a bin of another red skinned eating apple, Story, which I think I like better than Juliet, along with the yellow-skinned and fleshed Goldrush (similar to a golden delicious to my taste). Finally, they had what I think was Calville Blanc, an ugly apple on the outside with a pale yellow flesh that is very tart, so perfect for cooking. I believe we have one of these, too (I thought its ugliness was a growing problem not a characteristic — so much to learn!)
What to do with all these apples?
Eat them. Right off the tree if you can (do a careful bug check if you are in our orchard). Make sauces, conserves, and butters like Jangopom. But I did promise some recipes in this blog, so here are my go-to things to do with apples aside from just eat them. You can make the first without honey, and the second without sugar if you have sweet apples, but the last one is not a dieter’s friend.
Add to meuseli or overnight oats, with a drizzle of honey, nuts, some berries, and yogurt — ideally with home-made sheep’s milk yogurt (I cheat and use a yogurt maker, which basically just keeps the jars at the right temperature for the starter to do her thing). In France you can buy UHT (Longlife) sheep and goat milk at large supermarkets and they work perfectly. I just use a spoonful per jar of a yogurt left from last week or a store bought jar as starter (the tangier the better). Mix it up and sit in the morning sun listening to the birds as you eat it. Breakfast of champions.
Stick them on the grill when you’re cooking outside: Take a largish apple, remove the core and sit the apple in the middle of a square of thick foil about two inches larger than the apple (two layers if you are using the super-thin French foil). Pull up the edges of the foil to surround the apple just leaving the top open. There should be enough foil to pull up over the apple and twist closed. Stuff the space where the core was with alternating layers of raisins and brown sugar (add cinnamon if you so desire), at the top add a lump of butter and splash brandy or rum into the new “core.” Close the top tightly and sit on the top shelf of the grill while you cook and eat your meal (about 30 minutes). Remove the apples and let them cool a bit, then slip out of the foil into individual bowls and serve with vanilla ice cream, whipped cream, or, if you’re in France, coconut cream substitute or store bought crème anglaise (or homemade custard if you’re English). This is my go-to summer desert. You can cook it in cinders if you use a coal grill, or in the oven (375ºF/190ºC for about 30 minutes) if you need to have this on a rainy day. And I think you will
Make a Tarte Tartin. This is the fancy desert that is sure to impress but is actually foolproof. After Hurricane Sandy when we had no power for 10 days and needed to use up our frozen food and treat our neighbors, I made this several days running — by flashlight. Google will give you many varieties of the recipe, all following the same upside down principle; the image to the right came from the purple pumpkin blog, which is a good alternative if you don’t have a skillet. I prefer the classic cast iron skillet method if you have one. I make mine in either an 8” or a 10” skillet.
- Add half a cup of sugar and half a cup of unsalted butter to the skillet and heat on the stove top until golden, stirring to make sure it doesn’t burn—you want caramel not toffee.
- Meanwhile, core and slice about 7 apples (6 if large; 8 if small). You can peal or not (the classic recipe does); some people just halve them. I use a half in the middle and slices around the edges.
- When the sugar-butter mix looks good, add the apples, cut side up if you halved them. Making an outward spiral like the picture allows you to slip in more apples as they cook. Density is key.
- Cook (without stirring) the apple mixture for 15-20 minutes until the apples are soft and the caramel still golden.
- Remove from the stove-top and COOL while the oven heats to 350ºF/180ºC
- Slap a piece of chilled store bought puff pastry on top of the cooled apple mix, make a few slices in the top so it can breathe, and tuck the edges under the apple mix — like making a bed. No need for any kind of wash on the pastry.
- Bake about 20 – 30 minutes until the pastry is puffy and light golden but not over-cooked (check after 20 minutes)
- This is the key: remove from the oven and let it sit 20 minutes in the pan — but do not take it out of the pan until you are ready to eat it (if you plate it more than 5 minutes before serving the juice runs into the pastry and makes it soggy and chewy; you want light and crispy).
- When you’re almost ready for desert, pop the pan back on the stove top for 5 minutes to heat through. You’ll probably see the caramel bubble up around the edges of the pastry but if not don’t worry — You’re just reheating.
- Finally, invert onto a serving plate and serve apple side up (with cream or ice cream if you need a distraction, or just as is) .
ENJOY!
Finally, I need your help please!
Below are images from our orchard. Please let me know if you can identify these varieties — and I am looking at you Antoin!
