One of the reasons French apple tarts can sometimes be disappointing is that they use eating apples (often the insipid Golden Delicious). If I’m following a French recipe, I’ll use the tartest eating apples I can find, such as Granny Smith, though what I really want is an apple that’s difficult to get your hands on (unless you visit the apple collection
in Brogdale, Kent): Ashmead’s Kernel. Tart and sweet with a taut skin, it floods your mouth with juice. I had a tree in my last home. It was hard to leave.
I like apples in savoury dishes for the same reasons I like them in desserts, the joy of contrast. I love meat with fruit: pork with apple sauce, lamb with apple and rosemary jelly, and a chicken sauté with apples, leeks and cream.
My apple appreciation is, though, down to familiarity as well as flavour. It was the first fruit – along with apricots – that I loved. Pretending it was a toffee apple, I used to stick a fork into the base and eat my way round. I would go right to the core, sometimes eating a few of the seeds by mistake, until a mean uncle told me that apple trees would grow in my tummy. Orchards seemed magical, but I wasn’t keen to have one inside me.
