The Apple Club Newsletter

Autumn 2003

Welcome to our 12th newsletter. I hope that you enjoy it.

Irish Mustard

Early this spring we ploughed down our old strawberry plot, and were wondering what to plant there instead. At the time, our first batch of vinegar was finishing, and we thought it would be nice to grow something that we could sell along with it. After some research, we found out that one of the ingredients in mustard (as you buy it in a jar or tube) is vinegar, and since you can already get French Mustard, American Mustard, and English Mustard, we thought it would be nice to have an Irish one too. So we got some seed and planted an acre, and it was harvested a few weeks ago.
Mustard plants look like weeds, and I suppose if they were growing in the wrong place they would be, just as wild mustard grows in Ireland anyway. Whether cultivated mustard would do well here was a mystery, as we had not tried it before, and it is usually grown in warmer countries. However, we need not have worried, because with the summer we had, the plants flourished, and we harvested a lovely crop, though there were some weed seeds present that we still have to remove by fine-sieving.
We plan to make the mustard as soon as our next batch of vinegar is ready, and we look forward to bringing you the resultant Irish Mustard.

Cahir Farmers Market

For anybody living in the South Tipperary area (or who fancies a trip to Tipp), a great new shopping experience is available every Saturday morning at Cahir Farmers’ Market. This is a recently launched outdoor market, which specialises in local foods. All the benefits of consuming local foods are well known, such as the support of local jobs and industry, and the environmental benefit of not having to transport food the length and breadth of the country. The benefit of visiting Cahir Farmers’ Market is that you get to meet the food producer, whether it is the Grubb family with their World-renowned Cashel Blue and other cheeses, or the producers of other excellent cheeses, breads, cakes, conserves, meats, fish, vegetables and so on, as well as products from our own farm too. The market is wonderfully situated next to the Craft Granary, and because each stall is weather-proof thanks to excellent design, this allows shoppers and browsers to take shelter if necessary.
For anyone interested in supporting your other local producers, I recommend a visit to Cahir Farmers’ Market. Business commences at 9am, and while stalls remain open until 1pm, you always run the risk of meeting an empty stall if you wait until the last moment. I look forward to seeing you there at our stall soon.

Shop opening times

Our farm-shop is open 7-days a week, but now that the nights are getting longer we are closing that bit earlier. Official opening times are from 8am to 6.30 pm Monday to Saturday, and 9.30am to 6pm Sunday. It will be much appreciated if you can call within these hours.

Cox’s Orange Pippin

The most famous apple in the world was raised by Richard Cox. Originally a brewer from Bermondsey, he retired and moved to Colnbrook in Berkshire to pursue his hobby of horticulture. He lived there with his wife, two maid servants, a boy servant and three gardeners on two acres of land.
In 1825 Richard Cox planted two seeds from a Ribston Pippin which he is thought to have pollinated with a Blenheim Orange. Some years later, when the trees had fruited, he realised they had potential. These were later to become known as the Cox's Orange Pippin and Cox's Pomona. In 1836 he supplied some grafts to R. Small & Son, a local nurseryman who sold the first trees in 1840. The varieties remained nationally unknown until Charles Turner of the Royal Nurseries, Slough, started to promote them in 1850. The original Cox's Orange Pippin tree is thought to have blown down in a gale in 1911, but two sixty year old trees were still standing in the garden in 1933, presumably direct grafts from the original.
Richard Cox died in 1845 aged 79 so he did not see the full fruits of his labour. Other nurserymen began to sell Cox's Orange Pippin trees and by 1883 it was already one of the most popular apples in the United Kingdom, being voted best dessert apple at the Horticultural congress that year. Now it is well known all over the world - and all the Cox's Orange Pippin trees ultimately derive from grafts from the original tree. Like so many varieties, it favours its own locality and it is said to 'grow of its best not much more than 100 miles from its birthplace in Colnbrook'.
Although our farm is located about 300 miles (and across the sea) from Colnbrook, we believe that the flavour of an Irish Cox is difficult to beat. We invite you to test this claim, as we will have our crop on sale shortly. While the apples are small this year, and the skin a bit rough, the flavour should be just as good as Richard Cox tasted around 1830.

RECIPE – Meringues with poached apple

The Bramley apple in this recipe gives a particularly delicious taste, and unlike most eating apples that hold their shape when cooked, it becomes a puree.

Ingredients:
For the meringue:
3 egg whites
55g caster sugar
110g light brown muscovado sugar
For the apple filling:
55g light brown muscovado sugar
110ml warm water
6 medium sized eating apples and 1 Bramley cooker, all cored, peeled and quartered
Zest and juice of 1 lemon
To serve:
225g cr me fraiche, whipped cream or plain yoghurt.

Method:
Preheat the oven to 110oC (225oF)
Line two baking trays with non-stick baking parchment.

To make the meringues:
Whisk the egg whites until they are very stiff but not dry. Add caster sugar, whisk until stiff and shiny. Carefully fold in the brown sugar.
Drop 6 tablespoons of the mixture on the baking sheets, spacing them well apart. Using the back of a teaspoon, make a dip in the centre of each to form a nest. Alternatively, pipe 6 nests using a star nozzle.
Bake in the oven for about 2 hours until meringues are dry through. Check them after 1 1/2 hours when you should be able to lift them off the paper and turn them upside down or stand them on their sides to dry out fully.
Alternatively, buy a pack of meringue nests.

For the apple filling:
Put the sugar and water in a frying pan and cook over a low heat, stirring gently to help dissolve the sugar. Slice or cube the pre-quartered apples and add to the pan in a single layer once the sugar has dissolved. Sprinkle with the lemon zest and juice; cover and cook over a low heat until just soft and light (golden) brown.
During the cooking it may be necessary to stir the mixture.
Set aside to cool slightly – it should be served warm rather than hot.

To serve:
Place an individual meringue on a plate and spoon the apple mixture into the nest. Top with a dollop of cr me fraiche, cream or yoghurt.

Autumn In the fruit garden

Apples and Plums
Most apple varieties should be harvested or ready for harvest by now. Trees will soon begin to lose their leaves, but now is the time when they grow their roots and make buds for next year. A light manure at this time can set up the trees in good condition for the winter, but not too much, as then they will begin to grow like it’s springtime.

Strawberries
The strawberry runners produced by your old plants will be ready for transplanting by mid-November. When moving them to a new location bring as little soil as possible, as the soil-borne diseases that affect strawberry are very serious. If you are keeping your old plot, remove excess runners and pull any weeds that have appeared in the autumn.

Raspberries
The old raspberry canes should be dying off by now, and if you wish to begin removing these you can do so from now on. Cut the canes as close as possible to the ground so that infections will not enter. If you have new canes (or a primocane autumn variety) with ripening fruit still on them, it may be worth covering the plants so that they will come to fruition.

Children’s Section, By Willem Traas

In our summer newsletter I wrote about Holland and what the country looks like. As you will remember, the main difference with Ireland is that Holland has no mountains or hills and more water than Ireland. And a lot of people.

Holland is also well known for many things:
The Dutch Masters: Painters like Rembrandt, Vermeer, France Seals and Jan Stern.
Dutch Clogs: Wooden Shoes
Tulips from Amsterdam
Rotterdam port
Gouda cheese
Edam cheese
Dutch cigars
Delft : Blue coloured porcelain (such as cups and saucers)
Philips TV’s and electronics
Canals and ice-skating
DAF lorries
Dutch chocolate
Douwe Egberts coffee and tea
Dutch shipbuilding (Verolme shipbuilders were located in Cork)
Dutch bicycles
Dutch courage (You get it in a bottle)


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