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Apples for the orchard-phobic

by Nina Willdorf

Every season has its ritual: skiing in the winter, checking out the cherry blossoms in the spring, barbecuing in the summer, and apple-picking to greet the fall. And just about every season's ritual lets you down. The ski boots give you blisters, a freak snowstorm nukes the flowers, mosquitoes attack your cookout. And if you've ever actually piled into the Saab, clothed in an L.L. Bean barn jacket, and headed out to pick apples, you know why this romantic seasonal cliché is just that. You drive all that way, brave the hordes of similarly ambitious weekenders, just to, well, pluck some fruit off a tree? Ten minutes of this, and you've got more apples than you can eat all year. And there you are, all rosy-cheeked and flannel-clad in the middle of nowhere.

Fortunately, some of the most unusual apples you'll find are ripe for picking right out of the produce bin. Harvest Co-op, in Jamaica Plain and Central Square, is especially well stocked for the peaking apple season. "We try to carry the unusual varieties that are pretty rare in supermarkets," says Brian McKeller, produce manager at the Central Square location, which claims 15 types of locally grown apples. Beyond the standard Cortland, Gala, Macoun, McIntosh, and Red Delicious (75 cents to $1.50 per pound), the store stocks seven types of "antique" apples (around $2 per pound), non-hybrid fruits that claim roots as far back as the Puritans.

There's the sweet Cox's Orange Pippin from Bucks, England; the cidery Black Gilliflower from New England; and the crispy white Lady from England, the favored fruit of European ladies in court, who used to nibble on it to sweeten their breath. Harvest also stocks the speckled Roxbury Russet, the first American apple variety, rumored to have originated in some barn in Roxbury in the mid 1600s. Philosophically inclined apple-munchers may opt for the Blue Pearmain, which was supposedly Thoreau's favorite.

Porter Square's Pemberton Market also does a mean apple business, with six types of locally grown fruit. Two days after their Spartans, Empires, and Romes are picked in Stow, Massachusetts, they hit the store's shelves. Tommy Saidnawey, the president and owner, claims that you can really taste the difference. "There's a distinctive flavor to local apples," he says. "There's a crispness, a tartness, and they're not waxed and processed."

Of course, if you buy them from him, they're not exactly earned, either. But you'll get over it.

Stores mentioned in this article:

* Harvest Co-op: 581 Mass Ave, Cambridge, (617) 661-1580; 57 South Street, Jamaica Plain, (617) 524-1667.
* Pemberton Market: 2225 Mass Ave, Cambridge, (617) 491-2244.

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