The process of apple myth-making has not stopped to this day, otherwise why is New York called the Big Apple, the legendary Beatles, releasing the first records in a recording company , proudly put an apple on the cover, and the Macintosh computer empire chose an apple as its emblem?
The homeland of these familiar and at the same time amazing fruits is Asia Minor. They spread across Eurasia during the time of the great migration of peoples – the nomads carried a supply of apples with them, filling their way with stubs, and therefore apple seeds. Until now, apple orchards – the legacy of hoary antiquity – are rustling along the sides of the most ancient ways of mankind in the Caucasus, in Eastern and Southern Europe.
Apples were and are appreciated not only for their taste. Old English proverb
“An apple a day keeps the doctor away” – “One apple a day – you live without doctors”
successfully settled in many languages, as it reflects the real properties of apples, tested and confirmed by modern medicine.
For all its medicinal properties, an apple is, first of all, a valuable food product, striking in its versatility. Is there still something like that in nature that can be boiled, steamed, fried, baked, pickled, salted, dried, jellied, stuffed, frozen, preserved in all imaginable and inconceivable ways? Moreover, the range of dishes is immense. You can easily prepare a complete meal from apples, from salad and soup to a full second and dessert, and more than one – there are dozens of options.
Apples go well with beef, pork, poultry, game, seafood, black caviar (tested by gourmets!). They can be seasoned with cream, sugar, cinnamon, vanilla, salt, garlic, pepper, butter, and cider and calvados to enhance the apple flavor.
There is no national cuisine in the world where apples are not used in recipes. In this case, there is only one thing to consider: the variety. Because, as you know, there are apples that are sour, sweet and sweet and sour, there are soft and crunchy ones, there are summer, autumn and winter …
Summer apples should be eaten immediately after harvest – they are kept fresh for no more than two weeks.
Autumn, on the contrary, a week or two after harvesting, only begin to reveal their taste. But they are also unsuitable for long-term storage: their lifespan is limited to one and a half to two months.
But winter apples, although they become good only after a month, or even a little after harvest, are stored for a long time – until the next harvest.
All this plus the taste and texture determine the use of apples in cooking. Indeed, in fact, we will not make kebabs from a tender, sweet, crumbly white filling, but take simirenko or granny smith – otherwise all our kebabs will collapse into the brazier. Just as we will not bake Jonathan with honey and nuts – nothing worthwhile from this variety can be prepared in this way.