The Sweetest Apples Are…

The apples are starting to ripen on the tree in my backyard.  It is late summer in March. The birds have gotten most of the fruit since I do not net or cover my trees mostly.  I try and cover a small portion of it and still get more fruit than I or my family can eat. Apples are good in that I can preserve them for long term use – slice and dehydrated them to form dried apple chips that go well in cereals or a snack – my daughter has a liking for them.

While I wait for the fruits on the tree to ripen, there are a lot of them fallen to the ground – due to wind, rain, insects and birds having a nip. Many of the fruits lying on the ground are perfectly intact, just not ripe enough and got knocked down - one cannot easily tell if such a fruit is ripe enough, usually it is not. Most fruit that have fallen down have the distinct beak marks of the cockatoos or parrots. Some such fruit still remain on the tree. One can tell almost exactly how many bites have been taken. If you see many bite marks on an apple it is a sure sign that the fruit is ripe, sweet and tasty. I try to use as much of the fruit as possible to make these ‘chips’ by cutting off the parts and sections that I can use and throw away the rest.

I don’t care much for fully intact and perfect fruit like from the supermarket. In fact, getting a polished, waxed manufactured looking apple without any superficial ‘flaws’ due to chemical treatment does not interest me. Until I take a bite from one, I can never know how it actually tastes like. If it does not taste to my liking and I have bought a kilo or more, it seems such a waste!

My home grown apples are tasty, I know from experience. They are truly organically grown, no hazardous chemicals involved. Most fruits have a weathered look and some spots. Only a few fruit from my tree, due to fortune, grow large, full, ripe and totally unmarked. Looking at these, a stranger could not tell whether they are tasty or not. But looking at a spotted or bitten fruit one can usually tell.

This brings me to something I have observed. People too are like apples. When I see an apple that wears a bite mark, has a worm, or got knocked down while a bird sat on it while nipping it, I know what it has been through. I know that it is scarred because it is sweet.  Others have tasted it and taken more than a bite. The character of the apple shows through for all to see. To me, that is the ‘perfect’ apple; not something that looks like a clone or model with nothing to distinguish it from any other with no idea how it is inside.

So, the sweetest apples are those that carry many bite marks …

Photos credit and Copyright  (c) Kannan Narayanamurthy 2012

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