Featured Apple: Rome Beauty

 

In 1816, on the banks of the Ohio River, Joel Gillett purchased some trees from a local nursery.  Gillett gave one tree to his son that had sprouted below the graft.  His son let the sprout grow, and to his surprise it grew large attractive apples that he named Rome, for the township where he lived.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A medium-large, round apple with a slightly tart taste, the Rome Beauty is famed for its deep red color and excellent storage qualities. The Rome's flesh is crisp, firm and a greenish-white, and it has a thick skin. It is a good apple eaten fresh but is particularly valued for baking and in cider – its flavor intensifies and becomes richer when baked or sauted.  The Rome apple is considered the best variety for baking.

 

The Rome Beauty is also prized for antioxidant qualities – particularly the peel.  Most baking and applesauce is made after peeling, but you don’t need to.  You can easily make your own applesauce, with the peel, that is SO much better than what you buy at the store.  Try this one at home…core and cut apples in saucepan (at least 3-4, but as many as you want).  Add a little water and simmer 10 – 20 minutes, until soft.  Add honey or sugar, lemon, cinnamon or nutmeg to taste.  Mash.  That’s it.

AFTER APPLE PICKING

Robert Frost

 

My long two-pointed ladder's sticking through a tree
Toward heaven still,
And there's a barrel that I didn't fill
Beside it, and there may be two or three
Apples I didn't pick upon some bough.
But I am done with apple-picking now.
Essence of winter sleep is on the night,
The scent of apples: I am drowsing off.
I cannot rub the strangeness from my sight
I got from looking through a pane of glass
I skimmed this morning from the drinking trough
And held against the world of hoary grass.
It melted, and I let it fall and break.
But I was well
Upon my way to sleep before it fell,
And I could tell
What form my dreaming was about to take.
Magnified apples appear and disappear,
Stem end and blossom end,
And every fleck of russet showing clear.
My instep arch not only keeps the ache,
It keeps the pressure of a ladder-round.
I feel the ladder sway as the boughs bend.

And I keep hearing from the cellar bin
The rumbling sound
Of load on load of apples coming in.
For I have had too much
Of apple-picking: I am overtired
Of the great harvest I myself desired.
There were ten thousand thousand fruit to touch,
Cherish in hand, lift down, and not let fall.
For all

That struck the earth,
No matter if not bruised or spiked with stubble,
Went surely to the cider-apple heap
As of no worth.
One can see what will trouble
This sleep of mine, whatever sleep it is.
Were he not gone,
The woodchuck could say whether it's like his
Long sleep, as I describe its coming on,
Or just some human sleep.