Speaker 1: Guess what mango?
Speaker 2: What's that?
Speaker 3: Well, so I was reading this article in Mother Jones.
Speaker 3: It's by Rowan Jacobson.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, I know that byline he writes all those
Speaker 2: great food articles, like there was that one on a
Speaker 2: cheese a while back.
Speaker 3: I think, yeah, yeah, Well for this article he was
Speaker 3: writing about apples, We're gonna go with a different food topic,
Speaker 3: mango apples and apple trees specifically. And you know, until
Speaker 3: I read this piece, I had no idea how long
Speaker 3: an apple tree could live?
Speaker 1: Did you know? I have no idea?
Speaker 3: This isn't in your list of facts. Well, actually, I'm
Speaker 3: just going to quote him here. It says, even when abandoned,
Speaker 3: an apple tree can live more than two hundred years,
Speaker 3: and like the giving tree in shel Silverstein's book, it
Speaker 3: will wait patiently for the boy to return. There is
Speaker 3: a bent old black Oxford tree and Hollowell, Maine that
Speaker 3: is approximately two centuries old and still gives a crop
Speaker 3: of midnight purple apples each fall.
Speaker 2: I've actually never heard of midnight purple apples. We're learning
Speaker 2: so many things today.
Speaker 3: Well, apparently the US used to have thousands of different
Speaker 3: varieties of apples in the eighteen hundreds and the styles
Speaker 3: are really astonished. And since we're getting into fall and
Speaker 3: apple picking season, we thought it'd be fun to do
Speaker 3: a list of nine things all about apples. So let's
Speaker 3: dig it. Hey, their podcast listeners, welcome to Part Time Genius.
Speaker 3: I'm Will Pearson and as always I'm joined by my
Speaker 3: good friend Mangesh hot Ticketter and sitting behind the soundproof
Speaker 3: glass trying to stack apples three on top of each other.
Speaker 1: How long do you think he's been doing this? It's been.
Speaker 3: I guess that's how tall as smurf is supposed to be.
Speaker 3: Three apples, three apples. Our friend and producer Tristan McNeil
Speaker 3: always up to something.
Speaker 2: What a weirdo, but we love him. So I'm actually
Speaker 2: happy you picked apples as a topic because our cute
Speaker 2: little neighbor Ben, who is the best dressed gentleman on
Speaker 2: our block.
Speaker 3: About Ben Bowl in the podcaster here, I was like,
Speaker 3: he's not that little or well dressed.
Speaker 2: Actually he is well dressed. But our neighbor brought these
Speaker 2: like little bag of apples over this morning because he'd
Speaker 2: gotten apple picking this weekend, and in Georgia, I mean
Speaker 2: it's late September here, but it is so warm, I
Speaker 2: don't really think of it as apple picking season, and
Speaker 2: seeing that was almost my first reminder that it was
Speaker 2: fall now. But where do you want to start?
Speaker 1: Well, hoy, don't we start with just the varieties of apples.
Speaker 3: I know we mentioned just how many there used to
Speaker 3: be here in the States, And I found this list
Speaker 3: of eighteen apples with these incredible names that our friend
Speaker 3: Erica Okrant did for mental flaws, and the names are
Speaker 3: just so great. So we've got spartan dog, snout, Winterstein,
Speaker 3: rusty Coat, cor de bouffe, which is one of my favorites,
Speaker 3: which means heart of beef, and my favorite American mother.
Speaker 2: So those are some tough sounding names and they almost
Speaker 2: sound like uh punk rock fans or something.
Speaker 3: Actually, it's funny you say that, because there is one
Speaker 3: with an umlot that looks like a hair band.
Speaker 1: It's called Ootweiler spot lot. I think I'm sure I
Speaker 1: said that right.
Speaker 2: And it does not sound appealing the way you say that.
Speaker 2: They're right, But you know, docs now isn't like an
Speaker 2: apple I'm super keen to bite into. But I am curious, like,
Speaker 2: in reading all these descriptions, are there any of these
Speaker 2: rare varietals that you're actually eager to try.
Speaker 3: I mean, there was actually something in that row in
Speaker 3: jacobson piece. So, like we mentioned, in the mid eighteen hundreds,
Speaker 3: there were thousands of different types of apples, and as
Speaker 3: industrial agriculture came to the forefront, apple growers picked a
Speaker 3: handful of varieties to promote, not often settling on the
Speaker 3: ones that were the heartiest to transport for obvious reasons,
Speaker 3: which is.
Speaker 2: Why I red delicious are so popular, but you know,
Speaker 2: not really the most tasty of apples.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's right.
Speaker 3: But one of the apples that Jacobson writes about is
Speaker 3: called the Harrison apple, and as he puts it, quote,
Speaker 3: it was the pride of Newark, New Jersey, renown in
Speaker 3: the early eighteen hundreds for making a golden champagne like
Speaker 3: cider that might have been the finest in the world.
Speaker 2: So did we just get rid of it because it
Speaker 2: didn't transport?
Speaker 3: Well no, I mean it was lost for a few
Speaker 3: decades actually because of prohibition and there was no real
Speaker 3: reason to keep growing them. But then in the late
Speaker 3: nineteen seventies, this apple detective wouldn't this be a great job?
Speaker 3: He was an apple detective and he found one old
Speaker 3: tree in New Jersey. He grafted it and he started
Speaker 3: growing them again. And I haven't tried the champagne sider,
Speaker 3: but it's definitely on my to do list.
Speaker 2: So that's really interesting that they grafted a branch to
Speaker 2: make that happen. And I guess that's common for growing fruit.
Speaker 2: But one thing I didn't know until you know, we
Speaker 2: talked about this topic was that you can't actually grow
Speaker 2: a great apple tree from just planning a seed of
Speaker 2: any apple. And this is actually how BuzzFeed puts it. Quote,
Speaker 2: if you ate a macintosh apple and planted the seed,
Speaker 2: the tree it grew would produce apples that looked and
Speaker 2: tasted nothing like macintoshes. So instead of planning seeds, growers
Speaker 2: attach a cutting from the genetically desirable tree onto an
Speaker 2: existing branch or sapling called a rootstock, so that the
Speaker 2: grafted bit produces apples genetically identical did those on the tree.
Speaker 1: It was cut from.
Speaker 2: I mean, obviously I knew a little bit about grafting,
Speaker 2: but I don't know why it was so surprising to me.
Speaker 2: I think just because I had this like romantic old
Speaker 2: idea of like Johnny Apple seeds, scattering seeds, and these
Speaker 2: beautiful tasty apples growing from them. But you know that's
Speaker 2: almost never how you get great apples.
Speaker 3: You know, One thing I realized as I was reading
Speaker 3: up on this was how little I knew about apple production.
Speaker 3: Like farmers at apple orchards actually rent thousands of bees
Speaker 3: and hives from beekeepers each season just to pollinate their trees.
Speaker 1: Did you know this?
Speaker 2: I did not realize there was a rental market for bees.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but a good one.
Speaker 2: I know. In New York, some of our neighbors used
Speaker 2: to rent a cat to come to their place just
Speaker 2: to run around and lead the scent to keep away mice,
Speaker 2: which is equally weird to me.
Speaker 3: Weird and now scary. All of a sudden, you get
Speaker 3: one more place to be scared of. Well, yeah, so
Speaker 3: what happens is you rent bees for a couple of
Speaker 3: weeks and then the beekeeper comes back and takes the
Speaker 3: hive to another orchard. At least I think that's how
Speaker 3: it works. But I was reading about this Georgia farmer
Speaker 3: who was saying he doesn't need to rent bees because
Speaker 3: there are just so many types around, just naturally. And
Speaker 3: this was from a story reported on by Wabe. But
Speaker 3: the scientist from a local college came by and he
Speaker 3: referred to this one orchard as the bee Eden, and
Speaker 3: so here's his quote about it. The first time I
Speaker 3: came here during bloom was eye opening for me. It
Speaker 3: looked like almost the entire orchard was kind of on fire,
Speaker 3: was smoking like this black mist. Get up in there
Speaker 3: and you actually realize it's not smoke. It's just thousands
Speaker 3: and thousands and thousands of bees and they're all native.
Speaker 3: So what's crazy is that he found more than one
Speaker 3: hundred and fifty species of bees at this.
Speaker 1: One apple orchard of crazy.
Speaker 3: Yeah, including a type of bee that mines under the
Speaker 3: trees and has an underground city in the dirt.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's amazing. Well, I have one last apple growing
Speaker 2: factor and then we can talk about other things. But
Speaker 2: apparently Japan created some of the largest and most beautiful
Speaker 2: apples in the world. And if you've read about the
Speaker 2: giant single package strawberries they give for Valentine's Day, or
Speaker 2: like the square watermelon they produce, you know that the
Speaker 2: culture around cultivating this beautiful produce is very real, and
Speaker 2: apples are no exception. So I found this article on
Speaker 2: the University of Cincinnati magazine from this professor who was
Speaker 2: writing about her experience in Japan. And apparently farmers will
Speaker 2: climb ladders and pluck the four outer blooms on an apple,
Speaker 2: leaving only the center one because it creates an apple
Speaker 2: that's thirty percent larger than the standard American apple. And
Speaker 2: this is all done by hand. And then early in
Speaker 2: the season, when the apples are still just an inch big,
Speaker 2: they actually discard all the imperfect ones, like they know
Speaker 2: at that young like that they're not going to be beautiful, yeah,
Speaker 2: And then they take all the promising ones and they
Speaker 2: put these special wax paper bags on them. And not
Speaker 2: only does this paper bag system keep out the pest,
Speaker 2: but it supposedly extends the like storage life and the
Speaker 2: flavor of the fruits. And then they also put different
Speaker 2: wax colored paper on because it triggers the color jeans
Speaker 2: of the apples, and it's kind of crazy. They leave
Speaker 2: on to work. They leave them on for ten to
Speaker 2: fourteen days, and then they remove the bags, and then
Speaker 2: they give the apples pure sunlight because that's what gives
Speaker 2: them sweetness. But to make sure the apples get even
Speaker 2: sweetness everywhere, they actually rotate the apples on the on
Speaker 2: the branches by hand.
Speaker 3: They rotate them on the brand that they wouldn't be
Speaker 3: pulled off by doing that.
Speaker 2: No, they carefully rotate them. They take away any leaves
Speaker 2: that are causing shades. They even put these like white
Speaker 2: reflective mats underneath so that the bottom of the apples
Speaker 2: get a perfect tan. It's crazy. And then for the
Speaker 2: biggest apples, which are obviously going to be sold as gifts,
Speaker 2: they put on these stickers to create tattoos on the
Speaker 2: apples that say things like best wishes for a long
Speaker 2: life or or this one Japanese pop star put images
Speaker 2: of his face on it to.
Speaker 1: Get out to fans.
Speaker 2: It's just kind of amazing. But the professor ended the
Speaker 2: article by saying, quote, this intensive work results in apples
Speaker 2: that are absolutely beautiful and flawless. Our apples look scruffy
Speaker 2: in comparison. Yeah, I mean it so much work. All right,
Speaker 2: So we've done about five facts. Now I think, what
Speaker 2: do you say? We reel off some quick ones about
Speaker 2: apples you don't want to hear more about Japanese apple
Speaker 2: com That was pretty interesting. So here's what I found
Speaker 2: about the nineteen oh four Olympic marathon race and a
Speaker 2: truly bad apple. And of course reading about the old
Speaker 2: Olympics reminds you of just how different the competition was
Speaker 2: back then. Like in nineteen oh four, Felix Carbajal ran
Speaker 2: the race in cutoff trousers and a beret for some reason.
Speaker 2: And according to Smithsonian, he saw someone eating peaches along
Speaker 2: the way and snatched one or two and ate them.
Speaker 2: But he was still hungry for fruit, so he stopped
Speaker 2: in an orchard along the way and ate a bunch
Speaker 2: of apples, and then a few miles later he realized
Speaker 2: they were bad apples and he got the stomach cramp,
Speaker 2: so he laid down, took a nap, and when he
Speaker 2: woke up, he kept running.
Speaker 3: He was a butterfly. I thought you were telling the
Speaker 3: story of like that's kind of what He was still hungry.
Speaker 2: Then he took a nap, but he took a nap,
Speaker 2: started running again, and he finished in fourth place.
Speaker 1: Wow, in his fancy shorts. That's pretty great. Yeah, oh,
Speaker 1: that's pretty incredible.
Speaker 2: All right.
Speaker 1: Well, here's something I hadn't heard before.
Speaker 3: It It comes from the New York Times, and they
Speaker 3: were actually talking to this curator at the Philadelphia Museum
Speaker 3: of Art and discussing how artists spends so many hours
Speaker 3: just trying to represent a real fruit on canvas, you know,
Speaker 3: trying to get the color and the shape just completely accurate.
Speaker 3: Now partially because they're inspired by Seyson. But what's funny
Speaker 3: is that Sezon was a very slow painter. And as
Speaker 3: he puts it, he says that Seisan used artificial fruit
Speaker 3: partially because he didn't want it rotting in the time
Speaker 3: that he was trying to capture.
Speaker 1: I doubt that that's really true, but it gives you
Speaker 1: an idea of just how slow you was.
Speaker 2: That is interesting. Well, kind of like how Audubon used
Speaker 2: to paint birds by killing them and fixing them the
Speaker 2: wires on branches and like that. It's so grim, But
Speaker 2: we've got two more apple facts to go, so let's
Speaker 2: get to those right after a break. So have I
Speaker 2: told you that Ruby is obsessed with making fruit salads
Speaker 2: and just forcing them on people lately?
Speaker 3: You have not, although given her weird obsessions, this doesn't Yeah.
Speaker 2: So I walked in the house the other day and
Speaker 2: she said, who things, I make a great fruit salad.
Speaker 2: Raise your hand, dad, wis in your hand?
Speaker 1: Raised you gotta be honest with that's pretty good. Now,
Speaker 1: are they any good?
Speaker 2: I mean, it's surprising how good it is for a
Speaker 2: five year old to me at least. But she's so
Speaker 2: cocky about it. Like we went to this Korean restaurant
Speaker 2: last week and she looked at the food that came
Speaker 2: out and then she just kind of like turned to
Speaker 2: the waiter and said, I make a great fruit salad.
Speaker 2: If you want, I can come back and show you how,
Speaker 2: Like it's a secret or something. It's so ridiculous.
Speaker 3: Pretty great, all right, So we're talking apples and the
Speaker 3: pressure is on. I'd love this talk about Ruby. In fact,
Speaker 3: I think her obsessions deserve a night at some point.
Speaker 3: But what's your last factor of the day?
Speaker 1: Mango?
Speaker 2: Maybe Why New York is called a big Apple?
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, a good one.
Speaker 2: So New York City does produce a lot of apples,
Speaker 2: but according to history dot com, the nickname doesn't have
Speaker 2: to do with the fruit production. Apparently the name comes
Speaker 2: from this newspaper writer in the twenties who overheard these
Speaker 2: New Orleans stable hens talking about traveling to these big
Speaker 2: races in New York and they called it the Big
Speaker 2: Apple because it was considered this like big time venue.
Speaker 2: But he liked it so much he just kept using it,
Speaker 2: and it caught on with jazz musicians in the thirties.
Speaker 2: But apparently the city she forgot the name for about
Speaker 2: forty years, and then it was revived in the seventies
Speaker 2: for a tourism campaign and that's when it really stuck.
Speaker 2: But you know, what's interesting to me is that New
Speaker 2: York hasn't always been partial to apples. In the sixteen hundreds,
Speaker 2: the Dutch actually called the city New Orange for a
Speaker 2: brief period in honor of William of Orange.
Speaker 3: Oh wow, all right, Well, I'm going to end this
Speaker 3: one on Isaac Newton. It just felt like the right
Speaker 3: thing to do in a story I found on him
Speaker 3: from our friends at Nita Rama. So everybody's heard the
Speaker 3: legend that Newton quote discovered gravity when an apple fell
Speaker 3: on his head, And well, the story isn't exactly true.
Speaker 3: There was an apple involved in the discovery. Apparently Newton
Speaker 3: wrote about it himself and describe witnessing this falling apple
Speaker 3: while staring out of a window at his house in Woolsthorpe, Manor.
Speaker 3: Now what's interesting, though, is that there are a number
Speaker 3: of places that claim they have the tree, and one
Speaker 3: place called the King's School says that they paid to
Speaker 3: uproot the tree and put it in their headmaster's garden. Meanwhile,
Speaker 3: Trinity College and Cambridge claims that they have the lone
Speaker 3: descendant of the original old tree outside the room where
Speaker 3: Newton studied. What's funny is that they all get pretty
Speaker 3: specific about the tree too. So here's how Nitaama explains it.
Speaker 3: That the apple is a green cooking apple called the
Speaker 3: flower of Kent, and it's this pear shaped, mealy and
Speaker 3: actually generally unappetizing apple that changed the course of signs.
Speaker 2: I like that we're giving this pear shaped, mediocre apple
Speaker 2: some glorious I do think you have to get the
Speaker 2: prize for this.
Speaker 1: Well, thanks so much. And if you look, actually he
Speaker 1: has stacked four apples. He's just showing off over there. Tristan.
Speaker 3: That's right, well them, Tristan, mango and meat. Thanks so
Speaker 3: much for listening. Thanks again for listening. Part Time Genius
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Speaker 2: Do we forget Jason?
Speaker 1: Jason who