From Kazakhstan to the Cider Renaissance: The Surprising Story of the Apple

The Roxbury Russet, America's oldest named apple variety dating back to the 1630s, tastes like "a lemonade that you would make with lemons, pears, and honey," according to Yankee magazine senior food editor Amy Traverso. It has bright acidity, rich sweetness, floral pear aromas, and a nutty flavor from its brown russeted skin. Yet you will almost certainly never find it in a grocery store. Instead, you will find the Red Delicious, which as Gastropod co-host Nicola Twilley puts it, "is red but not delicious at all." How America went from 14,000 apple varieties to a handful of mediocre supermarket options—and how cider is bringing the lost diversity back—is the story of this episode.

The Apple's Journey from Kazakhstan to the American Frontier

Apples are not native to America. They originated in Kazakhstan, near the city now called Almaty, which means "father of the apple." There, whole forests of apple trees grow, producing fruit ranging from olive-sized to large brown specimens, most of them dry, bitter, and tannic—traits that helped them survive drops to the ground and resist insects. Bears, however, preferred the sweeter, larger, redder apples that occasionally appeared, and by spreading those seeds, they helped select for the very qualities humans would later want.