On breeding bitches and Braeburns

And she was lovely, but every overbred breed has their weakness: H died of mitral valve disease at ten, to which Cavaliers are prone. Even before their first birthdays, their puppy hearts have often begun to murmur quietly--a gentle gurgle I thought I could hear if I pressed my ear against her chest. This generally develops over their lifetime and very often leads to heart failure. It's the chorus of genetic prophesy that comes with the tragically purebred Cavalier: MVD, syringomyelia, epilepsy, cataracts, and various sorts of dysplasia.

But what is the answer? Surely not breeding...out? Why, that would lead to the gradual extinction of the breed! And there is nothing, nothing in the world to fear more than the dwindling down of breed (except perhaps haemophilia and Mandibular prognathism...). Imagine for example, several nightmarish turns around the apple bin, and not finding a Braeburn, gasp!--once a hybrid itself, now a well established breed of its own.

The Braeburn, which I happen to be eating right now, is characterised by a light green skin with blushing streaks. It is crisp, sweet, and full of a flavour that, if grown and handled properly, can develop further with ageing. But, it is particularly prone to disease (apple scab, powdery mildew, and other nasty things I can neither remember nor spell) and growers often need foliar calcium sprays to maintain the fine, firm flesh. It is so difficult, that home growers are actually discouraged from planting the Braeburn in their gardens with the threat of poor pollination and disease.

The portmanteau of cultivated + variety = cultivar, and is used to describe the sorts of apples I am most familiar with. Granny Smith and Golden Delicious, for example, are cultivars. Unlike AOC, which protects the names and methods of specific regions, or the idea of terroir, which ties taste to the particular patch of soil on which it grew, the term cultivar describes a group of plants that share a particular attribute or combination of attributes regardless of location.

So that the Braeburn can bloom early and ripen late a hemisphere off from Braeburn, New Zealand where it was first discovered in 1952. And though a few Kiwis might be brassed off and say: ta, but bugger off with your apples, our brilliant Braeburns are a box of budgies at our bun-fights!

Well even if they say that--and I'm sure no one has ever, ever said that--there's still nothing to stop Chile and China, two major apple exporters, from selling Braeburns with the same genetic identity and growing process. Not to mention the US and UK, which also grow them in significant proportion to other popular apples.

If you truly believe in place as part of taste--soil nutrients, sunshine, rain-fall, drainage etc. this is bad news. If you think terroir is an imaginary monster in the French oral tradition used to terroirise school children into eating locally, it doesn't matter so much.

My breakfast, now a browning core, was from Washington--which imported from New Zealand in the eighties and found the fruit quite popular with American consumers. In Washington, the Braeburn season is coming to an end right now--late September through May. But just as the season ends in the US, it begins in Chile where the seasons are opposite and the Braeburn will export well into July.

But don't go getting the idea that cultivars allow for some sort of collective, global ownership that threatens apple identity: apple identity is changing and cultivars can be patented. Patented! And in the US, the person who has invented, accidentally discovered, or asexually reproduced a distinct and new variety of plant--probably with the help of well-trained bumblebees, a lightning harness run by hamsters, and a full moon--is protected for up to twenty years. Which means other enthusiasts are legally restricted from replicating, selling, or using the plant in any way.

This means that right now, there could be some trees on which the Apple to end all Apples is ripening, and one lucky bastard napping in their shade, who has patented their genetic identity and is not required to share his discovery in any way. Is he curing a genetic disease with a perfect hybrid? Getting off his face on virgin trodden cider? Is he a member of la Confrerie, dissatisfied with the Reine des Reinettes, and committed to developing a more perfect apple for the Tarte Tatin?

A woman cannot hold an apple in her hands without alluding to moral glitch, but are we moving, slowly, towards a perfect apple--is that what it (Everything) has all been about: a lesson in divine recovery? Are we capable of apple perfectability--breeding and breeding until a precise combination is reached, and we unravel into enlightened, unbound elementary particles?

Unbound elementary particles? A lesson in divine recovery? What half-baked nonsense! I mean, we're talking apples here, not puppies! Seriously, get a job. No honey, a real job.