Vavilov’s fascination with the history of the apple is still alive today as academics, enthusiasts and conservationists all try to understand the apple’s convoluted story and its relevance in the modern world.
BBC news kicked off with a slideshow dedicated to Kazakhstan’s wild apples last Monday.
This picture shows some of the surviving wild apple forests in the Tien Shan mountains of southern Kazakhstan, but you’ll have to visit the BBC’s web site to see the rest and find out why they are in the news again. [1]
Then yesterday Nick Saltmarsh published an article on the history of the apple on his blog The Tracing Paper, specifically making the connections between the far-off forests of Kyrgyzstan and his local apple varieties. Most of those local varieties will not be familiar even to local people, because suppliers such as supermarkets disdain to deal in them, but Saltmarsh gives some good tips about how to go about tasting the full range of apple diversity.
Notes:
- It seems the BBC does not allow people outside the UK to embed items like slideshows or videos directly on other web pages, unless someone can inform me otherwise. [↩]
Show on map