Since the apple's 17th century introduction to the Hudson Valley, the region has played a key role in the development of one of the world's favorite fruits. In return, the apple has influenced the valley's economy, history and culture.
In 1647, Gov. Peter Stuyvesant planted an apple tree from Holland on the corner of Third Avenue and 13th Street in New York City. Settlers moving north of the city brought their own seeds and found the soils, climate, and topography of many parts of the Hudson Valley well suited for fruit production.
Orchards were soon well established in the valley, with the region shipping fruit to New York City via the Hudson River, and on to England by the 1760s. More than 500 varieties of apples originated in New York State before 1850, with Esopus Spitzenburg, a favorite of Thomas Jefferson, first grown in Ulster County in the late 1700s.
Another favorite of Jefferson's was the Newtown Pippin. This heirloom apple variety was first discovered growing in 1730 in part of what is now New York City. The apple was added in 2009 to Slow Food USA's Ark of Taste, which catalogs foods that are part of this country's heritage and in danger of extinction. Products included in the Ark are nominated by farmers, growers, chefs and food enthusiasts from across the country and judged for cultural importance and taste, among other criteria.
In 2008, Slow Food donated 85 Newtown Pippin trees to three Hudson Valley farms: Breezy Hill Orchard in Staatsburg, Prospect Hill Orchards in Milton, and Migliorelli Farm in Tivoli. These farms bring apples to the New York City Greenmarket as well as farmers markets in the Hudson Valley. Also receiving Newtown Pippin trees were the educational farms at the Stone Barns Center for Food and Agriculture in Tarrytown and the Queens County Farm Museum, which is not far from the site where the Newtown Pippin was discovered.
Another heirloom apple, the Jonathan, is parent to the Jonagold apples today so prized in Europe and was discovered in Woodstock in 1826. The widely popular Empire apple was developed in the 1960s from seed collected in Columbia County. "A number of strains of different varieties, such as Pioneer McIntosh, were found in Hudson Valley orchards," adds Mike Fargione, a Cornell Cooperative Extension educator for the Hudson Valley.
A glance at a list of apples grown a hundred years ago shows some familiar names, with Fishkill and Red Hook joining Ogdensburgh, Seneca Favorite, Suffolk Beauty, Geneva Pippin, and Long Island Russet as old-time varieties that commemorated New York's historic apple-growing centers.
The Wise Encyclopedia of Cookery, a housewife's manual published in 1948 in New York, lists the top 20 apple varieties of the time, noting that Baldwin, Ben Davis, Greening, Jonathan, Northern Spy, Spitzenberg and Winesap were grown in the eastern states. Many of these varieties are becoming harder to find today, having fallen into disfavor for an array of reasons.
"Growers now look for an apple that holds its flavor well through the winter. Consumers seem to be a lot more conscious of crispness now; they want a crisp apple. Years ago people were more understanding if an apple wasn't so crisp; it was more about the flavor," says John Hardeman, who grows apples, including some older varieties, on his farm in the mid-Hudson region.
Today, the region's apple growers concentrate on four main varieties: McIntosh, Empire, Red Delicious and Rome. But numerous other varieties can be found in small niche markets, at local farmstands and at regional farmers' markets.
"Hudson Valley growers produce a diverse number of apple varieties, with many farms growing 20 or more varieties," says Fargione. "Growers continue to evaluate new varieties and new strains of a single variety looking for apples that will be prized by consumers and will retain their eating quality during storage, shipping and time spent on the shelf in supermarkets."
"There is some interest in growing heirloom varieties, but for small niche markets. Often there are particular ethnic groups that look for a favorite variety that is not widely grown for wholesale production. Many growers produce a few of these heirloom varieties for direct sale at the farm. There is also some new interest in producing cider apples for hard ciders such as are very popular in Europe. These are often heirloom varieties with high tannin levels," he says.
Hardeman, who also sells his own fresh cider, offers a variety of apples for sale at his Red Hook farmstand, including Gala, Ginger Gold, Mutsu, Northern Spy, Fuji, and Macoun, a harder-to-find and highly prized apple usually only available in October and November.
Developed at the state Agricultural Experiment Station in Geneva in 1932, Macoun "is a fantastic apple that has a lot of fans that seek them out. There is a very short harvest season for them and you have to catch them at the right time," says Pete Gregg, spokesman for the New York Apple Association, a non-profit trade organization representing the 674 commercial apple growers in New York.
"You don't really see Macoun sold at retail outlets -- they are almost exclusively sold at the orchards. It's an apple that has tremendous qualities to it and it has a very devoted fan base, an almost cultlike following of people who seek out that apple year after year," Gregg adds.
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