Core matters

The apple is perhaps the most revered, and yet somehow taken for granted, fruit in history.

The grape is honored for its ability to produce wine, and if you're a great person, you're a peach, but think of how often the apple appears in our vernacular.

You're the apple of my eye; an apple a day keeps the doctor away; one rotten apple spoils the whole bunch. Children with a rosy complexion are said to have apple cheeks; there's "The Apple Dumpling Gang," and Gwyneth Paltrow and Chris Martin named their daughter Apple. We have Apple Records, and I am typing this post on, yes, an Apple.

Yet the apple is somehow pedestrian. We neglect it. It is ubiquitous and inexpensive and not terribly sexy.

I began seriously considering the place of the apple in our society when I started helping out at a friend's orchard here in eastern Nebraska. My friend, who is the same age as I am, had a stroke and his wife needed help making fruit pies and boxing apples and directing people to the pick-your-own apples.

For a mere 50 cents per pound, folks can pluck apples from the trees and cart them home. I enjoy watching people from the city pop out of their cars, scoop up a lungful of fresh country air, get out their kids' strollers, hook their dogs to leashes and head out with boxes or canvas bags or plastic sacks to collect their bounty.

Some groups try to outdo each other. When it comes time to weigh the little lovelies, they breathlessly watch me place the bags on the scale and the side that collected the most goes home feeling pretty sassy. The old people take their time and don't try to jam too many apples into the boxes. I carry their boxes to their huge cars (why do old people only drive enormous automobiles?) and they tell me I'm a good "kid." I'm 41, but they don't seem to notice.

One afternoon I had to deal with a pallet of honey crisps -- bright, shiny, sweet-smelling and as plump as collagen-filled lips. I developed a crush.

Just then I began to contemplate and rediscover the beauty of the simple-but-true apple. What a glorious variety: honey crisp, red delicious, golden delicious, gala, fuji, pink lady, jon-a-gold, jonathan, braeburn, granny smith. Does any other fruit have such marvelously evocative varieties?

Apples go into pies, tarts, fritters, applesauce, jam, cobbler, cider and, of course, directly into the mouth. Apple slices are wonderful with a smear of peanut butter or a slice of sharp cheddar. Pop a stick into them and dip them in caramel and you have a sweet treat.

There is no fuzzy outer coating to contend with here; just wash and go. They have lots of fiber and other does-a-body-good stuff and they can be sweet or tart.

And although we might not consider them sexy nowadays, Satan, in the guise of that slithering snake, certainly decided an apple would be the most tantalizing way to tempt poor weak Eve. And who could forget the way that shiny apple mesmerized the unwitting Snow White, left to fend for herself in that little house while the dwarves were hi-ho'ing their way to work?

Oh, that nasty witch knew that sweet homemaker just needed a little attention -- and a red delicious. Don't we all?