Apples & People explores the astonishing story of the apple, connecting its diverse history to humanity and culture. Based upon a newly commissioned global map of the apple which traces a network of stories from the ancient world to the present day, this online programme and associated social media will reveal just how significant and iconic this humble fruit has become.
To celebrate National Storytelling Week, we are exploring the narrative from Norse mythology of Idun, the goddess of youth and the keeper of the life-giving golden apples. This is the world of the trickster Loki, the giant Thiazi, the kidnapping of Idun, the realm of the giants, Jotunheim and the fortified home of the Gods, Asgard.
We also present a new Apples & People Commission ‘Idun, Keeper of the Apples of Immortality‘ by Shropshire based, storyteller and folklorist Suzanne Thomas and musician Jake Thomas. Together, in the ancient Bardic Tradition, Suzanne and Jake blend stories and music to take you to a place where dragons fly, giants comb their beards and other worldly folk dance with mortals.
National Storytelling Week in the UK is 29th January – 5th February 2022
Apples & People usher in the New Year with this Apple Story about the great pomologist Thomas Andrew Knight (1759-1838) who was Herefordshire’s vanguard of pomology.
On 1 January 1811 Knight was elected second President of what was to become the Royal Horticultural Society in London.
Over one hundred of Knight’s reports were published by the Horticultural Society and Royal Society, recording the results of his extensive and diverse research.
To illustrate and complement this story, artist Chris Hellowell has produced ‘Four faces of Knight‘ which is an Apples & People Commission.
Gnarley applewood, not just a supporting act for fruit, has hidden depths which can be traced back through history, folklore and art.
In our latest Apple Story, Applewood: A brief history from tree to table, we investigate many of the uses that humankind has made of applewood, including fine carving, mill cogs, musical instruments and for woodblock printing. This Apple Story coincides with National Tree Week (27th November to 5th December in the UK).
We are delighted to unveil a new Apples & People commission by wood sculptor Ben Homer, who has made an oversized Golden Delicious apple pip using a piece of fallen applewood from a Herefordshire orchard recently gifted to the Museum of Cider by Susan Bulmer.
Natalia Kossentino’s wonderful creations, fabric apples, that include ‘Beauty in Rottenness’, were brought to our attention through her Instagram posts. Appropriately, she lives in Apeldoorn in The Netherlands!
This article is also available in Dutch (Nederlandse versie).
The Apples & People exhibition programme for 2021 concludes with a specially commissioned film from Vienna about making apple strudel. The accompanying article in the Journal of Apples describes the cultural and culinary interchange between the Ottoman Empire and Christendom that shaped this Austrian favourite.
Filmmaker Ian Lewis of The Farnham Film Company provides this Journal Article.
The exhibition programme team would like to take this opportunity to wish you a happy Christmas and look forward to sharing more stories about apples with you in the new year.
Four crabapple species grow in North America.
The Pacific crabapple, Malus fusca, grows on the western coast and has more genetic similarity to the wild apples of China than to the other American crabapples that grow in the east, suggesting spread of Malus fusca across a land corridor from origins in China.
Growing on the edge of water, this apple has particular significance for the Indigenous People who for centuries have lived along Canada’s western shore.
‘Pacific Crabapple: Food, Tools, Medicine and Magic‘ investigates how the First Nations Peoples of Canada have used fruit and wood of the Pacific crabapple.
Our newest Apple Story ‘The Golden Trail‘ tells of a remarkable journey for the world’s most important apple chance seedling made by Stark Bro’s Nurseries & Orchards Co. of Louisiana, Missouri USA.
The story of the Golden Delicious apple is incredible – almost the stuff of fantasy. A chance tree, a chance find, and the rest is history.
To celebrate this story we have an Apples & People Commission ‘The Most Valuable Golden Apple Tree In The World’ by Sara-Jane Arbury.
A poetic retelling of the tale from the point of view of the lone tree growing these “wonder apples” on a hillside in West Virginia, and its subsequent discovery by the Stark brothers.
Malus fusca © Dr Nancy Turner
Ford Maddox Brown - Tell's Son 1880 Private Collection - Bridgeman Images
Seventeen Sustainable Development Goals
Detail from the Herefordshire Pomona watercolours on display at the Museum of Cider in Hereford, which are on loan from H P Bulmer Limited Photograph by Paul LigasFollow us on social media:
Golden Apples and Strudel
Home, JournalA specially commissioned film from Vienna about making apple strudel and accompanying article describes the cultural and culinary interchange between the Ottoman Empire and Christendom that shaped this Austrian favourite.
Beauty in Rottenness and other apples
Home, JournalDesigner and maker, Natalia Kossentino describes how she became the apple craftswoman of the Netherlands in this new Apple Journal article.
The Apple: Served Three Ways
Home, JournalA taste of apples through time, with three historical recipes tried, tested and adapted for the contemporary kitchen by food historian Tasha Marks.