Sampling rare fruit with Brogdale Collections

A walk through the orchards at Brogdale Farm is like a taste tour through history, with hundreds of different apples, pears and other fruit from across the centuries there to be sampled.

Those of us used to a limited range of supermarket apples might be surprised at the vast array of flavours on offer here.

On a bright autumn afternoon, as he walks us through the rows of trees, Tom La Dell, trustee of the Brogdale Collections charity, suddenly gets excited. He plucks a small apple from a tree and, grinning broadly, bites into it with a loud crunch.

Tom La Dell, trustee of the Brogdale Collections charity, and Martin among the apples at the National Fruit Collection

“This one is ‘Pitmaston Pineapple’,” he says through munches. “This has a pineapple tang to it. It’s probably not quite ripe yet.”

I find one myself and nervous for my teeth – that was a loud crunch – I take a bite. It does taste of pineapple. I have never tasted anything like it. I quickly take a second bite.

You are unlikely to ever find this apple in Sainsbury’s. Its skin is too thin so it would bruise when handled. And its shape and yellowish green speckled russeting is unprepossessing, giving little hint to the explosion of exotic flavour it will deliver to your mouth.

Collection

I am beginning to see why this collection is so important. Here, over the space of 50 acres, you will find varieties from all over the world. And two of each to be on the safe side. There are 2,300 apple varieties, 650 pear, 350 cherry and 320 plum, as well as cobnut, quinces and medlars. Brogdale is unusual in that it is a fruiting collection. Surprisingly, perhaps, most national collections do not encourage the trees to bear fruit. They see their job as to act as gene banks, providing graft wood for growers and scientists.

Brogdale has a complex history. It was originally a government-owned research station, set up in 1952. But then Margaret Thatcher – in a wave of privatisations in the 1980s – decided it could be sold off.

The collection was almost lost. But now, as politicians and scientists internationally recognise the need to conserve the genetic diversity of the world’s food crops, its future seems more secure. The government still owns it, through the Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs. It is curated by the University of Reading. Brogdale Collections is the charity that organises public access to it. Tom, renowned apple and pear expert Joan Morgan and others have played a major part over the years in ensuring the collection remains intact through difficult times.

Apple history

The apple originated in the Tien Shan – or Heavenly Mountains – between Kazakhstan and China. The Malus sieversii that grows there became the principal ancestor of today’s domestic apples, now called Malus domestica. It evolved during the ice ages to be eaten by mammals, rather than birds. So it had to be big and juicy. Travellers on the Silk Road carried it further afield.

Apples do not breed true from seed, so every seed planted had the capacity to become a new kind of apple. As gardeners learned this, the best were preserved and cuttings taken and grafted – as they were with the Bramley apple and all the other trees in orchards today.

The Romans used apples to flavour pork recipes but usually they were served at the end of the meal to aid digestion. By medieval times they were being used in medicine – as a laxative (monks were recommended to eat ten raw apples a day) and later as a cough cure. Gerard recommended “the pulp of roasted apples mixed to a froth in water and drunk by the quart” as a treatment for those with gonorrhoea. An apple a day keeps the doctor away!

Joan Morgan and Alison Richards in their classic The New Book of Apples tell of one aphrodisiac recipe the Greek geographer Strabo claimed would be taken by a Persian girl on her wedding night. It involved nine apple pips pounded up with:

A little shaving from the head of a man who has died a violent death.. seven grains of barley that had been buried in a grave… the blood of a worm, of a black dog, and of the second finger of your left hand… mixed with semen and added to a cup of wine.

It sounds delightful and I am sure it got the bride in just the right frame of mind for the marital bed. You won’t find that in Sainsbury’s today either. Supermarkets, eh?! It’s time to get back to our walk.

‘Winter Banana’

Tom has found ‘Winter Banana’. He claims to be able to taste the banana. He says the taste will get stronger as it ripens. I am less sure. But what I do accept as we trot cheerfully from tree to tree is that this range of flavours is astonishing.

Little wonder that Victorian head gardeners invested so much effort on the orchard. Tom says: “On a country estate you could easily have 30 or 40 different apple trees. Serving fresh fruit at the end of dinner in a country house was absolutely essential, because it showed how cultivated and knowledgeable you were in horticultural matters. With skill a head gardener could produce beautiful fresh fruit almost throughout the year.”

From here we go on to taste the pears. More of them another time. And after this visit I am sure more apple stories are to come, too.

Brogdale Collections – at the home of the National Fruit Collection – is based in Faversham, Kent. For more information on tours and events, visit: brogdalecollections.org