Of Apple, Love, Knowledge & Sin

Did you know that the apple is so much more than a mere fruit?

The apple as we know it today comes from the malus sieversii tree, that can still be found in Central Asia nowadays.

It is generally accepted that apples were “domesticated” 4000–10000 years ago in the Tian Shan mountains (modern day Kyrgyzstan and northwestern China), and then travelled along the Silk Road to Europe. There has been evidence of apple cultivation in the third millennium BCE found in the Middle East.

Other type of apples existed, such as the crab-apple (once called “common apple”), native from North America for example. When the European colonists imported apples in the 17th century, it allowed for exchange and hybridisation between native and imported apples. Today, there are 7,500 known varieties (also called cultivars) of apples in the world. I wonder if there could be a Guinness book record to work on. Can you taste 7,500 different apples? Life might be too short!

The first apple orchard in North America was planted in Boston by Reverend William Blaxton in 1625.

If you want to learn more about apples in North America, you can look for the work of Tom Burford, fondly referred to as Professor Apple, who devoted his life to teaching apple cultivation!

But really, what is an apple? I know, that question seems odd and ultra obvious, but bear with me, I might surprise you!

As it is defined today, an apple is an edible fruit produced by a tree from the malus family.

Here is the fun fact. Up to the 17th century, the word apple in the English language was used as a generic term to identify foreign fruits, including berries and nuts.

I kid you not. This means that if you were having dinner at an inn in the 15th century and you asked for an apple, you might end up with an apple, or a banana, or a nut. Bottom line, you might just be surprised!

Here are some examples and food for thoughts:

Appel of paradis” was the name for a banana in the 14th century
“Love apples” was the term for tomatoes when those were first introduced in Europe
“Earth apples” referred to potatoes in many languages including French, Dutch, Hebrew, Afrikaans, Persian and Swiss German as well as several other German dialects
“Golden Apples” or “Chinese apples” were oranges

Who knew, right?

I would recommend a lot of caution from now on, if you read texts, let’s say from the 14th century, using the word apple. It might not mean what you think it does!

If you grew up in Europe or in a historically Christian country, you must have heard about Eve and Adam taking a bite of the apple, that Eve had picked from the tree of knowledge of good and evil. By this action they committed the original sin and created a separation between humans and God. One could argue that one tiny apple is at the root of all the pain, violence and death that we experience on a daily basis as humans fallen from grace.

Why don’t we check what the King James bible says about this?

- Genesis 2.6 – “And out of the ground made the LORD God to grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight, and good for food; the tree of life also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of knowledge of good and evil.”

- Genesis 3.6 – “And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise, she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat, and gave also unto her husband with her; and he did eat.”

Now, do you see an apple being mentioned anywhere? I certainly don’t!

Which got me thinking, if this is not in the bible why are we all taught about Eve and the apple?

Well, this is not an easy or straightforward answer, and the opinions vary.

The apple, as the fruit of the forbidden tree, appeared in Western Europe by the 12th century and was spread by various painters, poets and writers, including by John Milton’s 1667 poem “Paradise Lost”.

The term that appeared in the 12th century is allegedly the result of the translation of the bible from Hebrew into Latin. The Latin words for “evil” and “apple” are both versions of the word malus. More specifically, the Latin word for “apple” is mālum, while the Latin word for “evil” is mălum. An understandable mistake, right?

Now remember that until the 17th century, the word apple was used as a generic term for fruits, nuts and few vegetables. This means that even if we ignore the fact the translation might be inaccurate, the term apple simply meant fruit and not the apple as we know it today. In addition, the Hebrew Bible describes the forbidden fruit only as peri, also a generic term for fruit.

I guess I wasn’t the only one curious about this topic, and historians have speculated intensively about what type of fruit it could have been, and the contestants are: pomegranate, mango, fig, grape, etrog or citron, carob, pear, quince or mushroom. It could be an apple. It could also be a fruit that doesn’t exist anymore or only existed in the Garden of Eden! Bottom line, we will never know.

So, here you have it, this poor apple has been mistreated by generations of Christians for no good reason! I would also caution you once again: be careful when you read words in 2023 that were written centuries ago, and draw conclusions without knowing the context. This is how you start urban legends people!

As a rabbit hole lover, I wondered where bobbling apples came from, naturally, right?

That tradition seems to have been brought by the Romans into Britain, where it merged with the Celtic tradition of Samhain, the harvest festival that marked the end of summer.

Bobbing apples were originally used in the art of divination to predict matters of the heart and prospected marriages, before becoming the game it is nowadays.

Another version of the game was for the apples retrieved from the water to be peeled. Once a long enough section of skin was peeled, it was swirled around a young woman’s head three times and tossed over her shoulder, where it was supposed to reveal the first initial of her future spouse. That tradition mostly disappeared in the 1800s but remained popular in Scotland and Ireland.

And last but not least, a couple more fun facts, just because I can.

Apples were associated with much folklore, including Norse and Greek mythologies.

For example, in ancient Greece, the apple was considered as sacred to Aphrodite, the goddess of love (among other things!). To throw an apple at someone was to symbolically declare one's love; and similarly, to catch it was to symbolically show one's acceptance of that love.

Lastly, about the proverb, "An apple a day keeps the doctor away", which was first recorded in its current form in 1922. It has been traced to 19th century Wales, where the original phrase was "Eat an apple on going to bed, and you'll keep the doctor from earning his bread". The phrase evolved in the 19th and 20th century to "an apple a day, no doctor to pay" and "an apple a day sends the doctor away"..

I think you will agree with me now, apples are kind of fascinating!

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