The prince of all these among English apples is Cox’s Orange Pippin. Every grower knows that Cox is a difficult fruit to bring to a high standard, but it remains, after nearly 200 years, the one the connoisseur wants to eat. It is at its best from store in November and December. Its thin skin and the foaming texture of its richly sweet flesh are always welcome. In 1929, the fruit critic Edward Bunyard called it the Château d’Yquem of apples, on account of its combination of rich sweetness and long keeping quality.
Cox’s Orange Pippin was bred in 1830 by Richard Cox, a retired brewer. Cox lived at Colnbrook, now romantically sandwiched between Slough and Heathrow Airport, but then a quiet corner of rural Buckinghamshire. We do not know the apple’s parentage, but it is likely that one of its forebears was Ribston Pippin, a Yorkshire-born dessert apple that, to Victorians, occupied the place on the podium of ideal dessert apples now assumed by Cox.
This is the real wonder of Cox’s Orange Pippin: although it took me many years of gradual discovery to appreciate it, many of my favourite apples are closely related to it. When I encounter the eating quality of an unfamiliar apple and come to do a bit of superficial homework, there is Cox nearby on the family tree, quietly nodding to me in an unobtrusive way.
Denne historien er fra November 25, 2020-utgaven av Country Life UK.
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Denne historien er fra November 25, 2020-utgaven av Country Life UK.
Start din 7-dagers gratis prøveperiode på Magzter GOLD for å få tilgang til tusenvis av utvalgte premiumhistorier og 9000+ magasiner og aviser.
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Happiness in small things
Putting life into perspective and forces of nature in farming
Colour vision
In an eye-baffling arrangement of geometric shapes, a sinister-looking clown and a little girl, Test Card F is one of television’s most enduring images, says Rob Crossan
'Without fever there is no creation'
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The colour revolution
Toxic, dull or fast-fading pigments had long made it tricky for artists to paint verdant scenes, but the 19th century ushered in a viridescent explosion of waterlili
Bullace for you
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Lights, camera, action!
Three remarkable country houses, two of which have links to the film industry, the other the setting for a top-class croquet tournament, are anything but ordinary
I was on fire for you, where did you go?
In Iceland, a land with no monks or monkeys, our correspondent attempts to master the art of fishing light’ for Salmo salar, by stroking the creases and dimples of the Midfjardara river like the features of a loved one
Bravery bevond belief
A teenager on his gap year who saved a boy and his father from being savaged by a crocodile is one of a host of heroic acts celebrated in a book to mark the 250th anniversary of the Royal Humane Society, says its author Rupert Uloth
Let's get to the bottom of this
Discovering a well on your property can be viewed as a blessing or a curse, but all's well that ends well, says Deborah Nicholls-Lee, as she examines the benefits of a personal water supply
Sing on, sweet bird
An essential component of our emotional relationship with the landscape, the mellifluous song of a thrush shapes the very foundation of human happiness, notes Mark Cocker, as he takes a closer look at this diverse family of birds