For the Love of Heirloom Apples

I happened upon Nana Mae's organic Gravenstein apple sauce at my local food co-op, and no other apple sauce can compare. Now, I'm in a monogamous desert relationship with it, and this is my valentine.

I was initially frustrated that Nana Mae's Gravenstein unexplained absences from my co-op, but I began to understand that the problem was neither poor ordering on the part of the co-op nor unwillingness on the part of Nana Mae: The batch would run out before the next harvest could be mashed.

Which wasn't any less frustrating when I needed a fix, but at least I understood it — and I even felt like a good food citizen for eating seasonally, albeit against my will.

Then I learned that the Gravenstein is endangered: It's among heirloom species that are being squeezed out by the standardization of grocery store inventories.

My monogamous love for the Gravenstein has sparked an interest in these varietals, and today I came across an essay by Gary Nabhan, a pioneer of, to quote his book title, "Renewing America's Food Traditions."

In it, he tells the tales of lost apples from around the country. (And gives what looks like a mean recipe for brown apple betty). Here are a few more, courtesy of Slow Food:

My love, the Sebastopl Gravenstein is an early ripener, established by Russian immigrants in Sonoma County, Cal., in the early 1800s.

The Gravenstein is in decline because it is difficult to harvest and somewhat delicate to transport (like my other, less endangered favorite, the Macintosh). Sonoma orchards are also having a tough time holding out against Northern California's skyrocketing property values.

A Sierra Beauty sapling was discovered in the Sierra Nevada mountains in the 1890s — probably a remnant of crops planted by gold miners. It has a renaissance near Chico in the 1920s, but again faded out of popular use. It was rediscovered in 1980 in an Anderson Valley orchard.

The Newtown Pippin is originally from Queens, New York. It was a favorite of George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, and Thomas Jefferson, who grew the variety at Monticello. Its popularity fell precipitously after WWI.

Slow Food's New York branch has recruited corporate and non-profit partners to plant Newtown Pippin trees in public spaces throughout the five boroughs and to get the apple recognized as the "official" apple of the Big Apple (which wasn't really named for an apple at all).

Slow Food also includes these gems on its endangered species list:

• The Capitol Reef, which grows only in Capitol Reef National Park
• The Granite Beauty, which grows in the Granite State, New Hampshire
• The Harrison Cider gold, which hails from the Mid Atlantic region
• The Hauer Pippin which is a ate ripener from Santa Cruz County, California.

Photo credit: Wikimedia Commons