Whether we stew it or bite into it, turn it into jelly, pie, or fritters, the apple must first be picked! And whether with family or friends, few activities bring people together quite like an autumn visit to the orchard. So, enjoy the little story behind this beloved Quebec tradition!
If U-pick apples are so popular, it’s perhaps because their pleasure stimulates all the senses. We experience it long before we sink our teeth into the juicy, crunchy pulp. At first, it arrives as a coquettish gesture at the start of the day, after we’ve put on our favorite knitwear set aside for the summer. Then comes the comforting scent of sugar, cinnamon and fried fruit from the apple orchard cottage, where we strive to honor grandma’s recipes. The purr of the tractor as it sets off for the orchard titillates our anticipation…until we see it, all glistening, near the treetop: the reddest apple of them all, daring us to pick it!
© Cidrerie Milton
Fall custom
“Going apple picking” seems so natural that we forget that this autumn custom actually had a beginning! It was in the 1970s that the idea of opening orchards to the general public was first mooted by a handful of apple growers in the Montreal area. At first, it was a solution to labour shortages. But pick-your-own quickly became a tradition for city dwellers, for whom the countryside was suddenly more accessible.
© Ferme Quinn
Flesh for every taste!
Quebec has nearly twenty varieties of apples available for pick-your-own. Here are a few of them, from the lesser-known to the most popular, not forgetting the mythical extinct species.
- Vista Bella: It opens the harvest in early August. Eat quickly, as it only keeps for a week.
- Fameuse: Now extinct, the Fameuse was for a long time the most widely grown apple in Quebec in the 19th century, notably for its juicy, sweet white flesh. But a particularly harsh winter in the 1930s led apple growers to gradually replace it with a hardier variety: the McIntosh!
- McIntosh: Discovered by an Ontario farmer who gave it its name, the McIntosh is Quebec’s star apple: 39% of Quebec’s production is made of it! But its popularity is waning. Juicy and sweet, its crispness is less resistant to ageing than other varieties.
- Cortland: The champion of pies, the Cortland arrives in early October with its sweet taste and flesh that doesn’t oxidize when cut.
- Bourassa: A mythical fruit with green skin and hard flesh, the Bourrassa was sometimes described as the best apple in Lower Canada. It ceased to be grown in Quebec in the early 20th century, but a few trees of this species are thought to still exist in the United States.
- Red delicious: Picked at the end of October, it is one of the last of the season. Sweet as can be, it keeps until the end of winter.
© Verger À la Croisée des Pommes
Did you know that…
- Many Quebec orchards make their land available for weddings – a perfect place to sing the apple!
- Forgotten by the Commission des liqueurs in the list of permitted alcohols, cider was officially banned from production and distribution until 1970. Today, many apple growers own their own cider mills!
- Some orchards, like Domaine Lafrance in Saint-Joseph-du-Lac, offer the opportunity to pick frozen apples in winter. Put on your boots and snowsuits and help harvest the next cuvées of ice cider!
