End of apple-picking — and autumn — arrives

For most of Iowa, this week marks the end of apple-picking season. Most of the sacred fruit have fallen from the trees. Walk along a dirt path, the curled leaves crackling beneath the feet, and you might be lucky enough to find a Winesap, the last of apple varieties to ripen. But they're tart to the tongue and best left alone.

For a number of years, most of us have relied on supermarkets or orchards to pick the fruit we eat. And our taste has dulled for it; most are happy with the ubiquitous Red Delicious, which is a pretty good apple, really, but eating only it is akin to having just one shade of red in your Crayon box. No burgundy, pink, maroon, salmon, magenta or copper makes for a dull palette, so to speak.

Picking fruit is hard work, of course. If you want more than a bag, there's a lot of reaching upward, an unnatural direction for blood to flow, and there's the chance you may have to climb a ladder, difficult on the instep if stretching for branches. It's time consuming, too; most people in orchards go for the easy fruit that's at eye level, so if you're not among the first to arrive, there's a lot of walking and searching.

Too many apples, orchard-goers often discover, are cut and bruised, even before they've fallen. There's a certain displeasure in finding an imperfect apple, a sense that one's been cheated. And it's true that one bad apple ruins the bunch; apples with broken skin give off ethylene, a ripening gas, that spoils others in the bag. Call it entropy.

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One way to break North America's wildness, to give it uniformity, was planting apple trees. The Pilgrims planted apples in Massachusetts Bay. The first apple tree was rooted in Iowa soil during 1799 near Montrose.

By the early 20th century, Iowa ranked among the nation's top apple producing states. Farmers soon opted for row crops, though, replacing orchards with cornfields. The deciding moment, however, was a severe Armistice Day freeze in 1940 that killed or crippled most apple trees in the state.

Few orchard growers replanted. Apple trees, with their sweet-scented blossom, instead became an ornament for suburban lawns or a miniscule way for modernizing farmers to keep a piece of the past.

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You can chart a season by the ripening of apples.

It starts the first week of August as the Lodi come to bear. But their flesh rings tart and green. A few days later come Redfree, a little better tasting than Lodi but still not much good for pies.

Next is the Gala, which keeps awhile, and then Mc-Intosh, which thanks to its richly smooth texture when cooked, perhaps is the best known and most useful apple after the Red Delicious.

By mid-September, apple-picking season peaks with the Jonathan. The crimson apple with its flecks of green is my favorite. Each bite yields a spicy tang. It also gets along well with its sister apples; if making sauces or ciders, you can blend it with other varieties and not worry about any strange tastes.

The Red Delicious arrives a couple weeks after the Jonathan and then comes the Cortland, which is best for homemade pies. After that, it's down hill with Golden Delicious and Winesap. By All Hallow's Eve, nothing remains for apple lovers but bare branches and waxed imports.

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I rarely see an apple tree when hiking Iowa's trails. It's not like rural Wisconsin, Michigan or New York, where you're certain in aut-umn to run across a wild tree just as a rest is needed. I suppose the Armistice Day freeze and row crops don't lend themselves to wildness.

But that rare find when skirting the Iowa River valley or a bluff near Dubuque only sweetens the discovery.

Reaching up, I'll cup the apple in my palm and with a snap of the wrist break off the fruit. It's best to hold it against the blue sky and get a good look at the color to judge ripeness. Then comes the true test: biting into it.

The best apple tastes sinfully good.

(originally published Oct. 26, 2003)