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April 6, 2007

Strange But True!

Q. From Belle de Boskoop to Cox's Orange Pippin and 20,000 others, they're loaded with vitamins and antioxidants and can be cooked, dried, fermented or eaten without any preparation whatsoever. They've come down to us through the millennia courtesy of transporting birds, bears of the forests, and even horses and donkeys. Easy as pie, right?

A. Ancestral “neo-apples” (the size of a grape) go back 60 million-70 million years, then by 10 million-12 million years ago a recognizable apple appeared in what is now central China. The pips, or seeds, were likely transported by birds and flourished in the fruit forests of the Tian Shan Mountains, says Barrie Juniper in “American Scientist.” Then along came sweet-tooth bears, who unconsciously selected the larger specimens and were in effect an evolutionary force toward BIG. Since bears' jaws and guts do little damage to the hard-coated apple pips, germinating “loads” were spread all over the mountain range. Wild horses too played their part, ranging farther and more widely than the bear. Later, apple pips moved west in the guts of domesticated horses and donkeys, whose sharp hooves unwittingly planted the seeds at every oasis. Finally, from Europe the apple moved across the seven seas, rounding out the sweet apple (pie) saga.


 
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