Dartblog

I was going to entitle today’s post Support the PLO, but in the current climate satire has tough sledding, so I chose to harken back to Matt Damon in writing about one of the great places in the Upper Valley: Poverty Lane Orchards.

I’ve complained for many years that apples today just don’t taste as good as when I was a boy. One of modern life’s great disappointments is standing on a sunny New England hillside at the end of September, pulling a lucious-looking Macintosh right off the tree, and biting into to it — only to find that the prettified piece of fruit is soggy and without much real apple flavor. This sad state is undoubtedly the result of trees being bred to produce astounding amounts of fruit (an apple every six inches along very long branches, it seems), and so, as with grape vines, the goodness flowing up from the roots is divided among too many apples.

Poverty Lane rolls back the clock by growing heritage apples: little known, low-yielding varieties like Ashmead’s Kernel, Esopus Spitzenberg, Wickson, Pomme Grise, Hudson’s Golden Gem, and my personal favorite Golden Russet (pictured above). Not only are these apples crisp, tart and sweet at the same time, but they have intense, satisfying flavors. The Orchard call these heirloom varieties Uncommon Apples.

In the fall, just before PLO closes for the season, we buy a full crate of Golden Russets and put them in a 38° refrigerator. I wish that we had more space, because these apples keep for months if stored at the right temperature. Apples can stay fresh for a very long time if kept cool; those out-of-season supermarket beauties that you walk by can be up to a year old.

PLO makes great sweet cider as well, which you can buy unpasteurized throughout the fall. We buy seventy-two half-gallon jugs in October on a Saturday when the crew is pressing, and we freeze them right away. When thawed slowly in a fridge, the cider tastes wonderfully fresh throughout the winter. The difference between unpasteurized and pasteurized cider? Think of the difference between fresh-squeezed orange juice and OJ from concentrate. Enough said.

There are now more than a few places in the Upper Valley that sell products that the French would deem produits de terroir — things that could only come from here. I’ll post about some of them in the months ahead.