Joanna Crosby Dept.

of History Jan 2013

First Supervisory Board January 2013 Progress Report:

An investigation of the social and cultural history of the apple during the Victorian era (1837-1901), with consideration of how its status influenced, and was affected by, its commercial value.

(street art by Mydog Sighs, graffiti artist, 2012) And make us as Newton was, who in his garden watching The apple falling towards England, become aware Between himself and her of an eternal tie. (W.H.Auden, This Island)

Joanna Crosby Dept. of History Jan 2013

Why this topic? The research topic is a development of the informal research that I undertook for teaching and talks that I have given over the past four years as part of my voluntary work running the Trumpington Community Orchard Project in Cambridge (TCOP). I am one of the four founders of the project; at its inception we took the decision to plant heritage varieties of apple - those which had a history of being grown in East Anglia. In response to queries from TCOPs supporters and the media, I explored the history of the apple in cultivation and mythology. I was struck by the concept of apples being marketed today as heritage; I wanted to explore the cultural, social and psychological reasons behind the preservation and celebration of old varieties of apple, since I had experienced the belief, held by the Projects volunteers and various heritage growers, that old varieties deserved to be valued more highly than modern apples. There was much support for the idea that it is worth persisting in growing apple trees that may not provide the largest or most reliable crop, in order to preserve a rare variety. During my research and work with orchard supporters I developed some statements, or beliefs, even, about the English relationship to the apple. It is these statements, summarised as structure, below, which I wish to investigate further. Hypothesis I believe that I can demonstrate that apples have acquired layers (a discourse) of significance to their English consumers, over and above their importance as a foodstuff. These layers were acquired primarily during the Victorian era, and affected the cultural and symbolic status of the apple, as well at its commercial value. The current trend of orchard restoration and saving old varieties draws on the Victorian championing of apples. There is evidence that the Victorians developed and re-worked apple myths and traditions from earlier eras in order to mould the social agenda concerning landscape, rural stability and the notion of certain desirable home and family behaviours. I will describe these significances and analyse why they were developed and sustained in the Victorian era, and thus describe the complexities of the Victorian cultural and social relationship to apples, orchards, growers and consumers.

Joanna Crosby Dept. of History Jan 2013

Structure and chapter plan The use of the term investigation in my suggested thesis title allows me to develop my research around the following three questions, each of which gives rise to supplementary ones: i) How did the Victorians consume apples? how did they grow, sell, buy, eat, profit from and advertise apples and their related products. ii) How was the symbol or sign of the apple used, and to what purpose? in art, literature, speech and decoration. iii) What did the Victorians think of orchards and apple trees? as part of the landscape, as a symbolic representation (of loss?), as significant to English identity and the cultural representations of the nature of women. While formulating answers to those questions I will also consider how the symbolism of apples and orchards has persisted and has contemporary cultural relevance to modern apple consumers and growers. I do not anticipate comparing and contrasting the two periods at every point of my thesis, but I will draw out the differences and similarities, and analyse them in the concluding chapter. My aim is to give this research contemporary cultural relevance and to make a valuable and original contribution to the debates on heritage foods and traditional foodways, enabling my work to be used by others in the academic disciplines of food and cultural history. I have not developed a detailed chapter outline at present. I could devote a large chapter to each of the three major questions, or I could organise the material more thematically. At present I feel that I need to gather more material before I can map the relevant connections and draw key points between the information and the writers opinions. What I wish to avoid, however, is the very linear and empirical line taken by Mabberley, Morgan et al in previous histories of the apple. Therefore I have used the chapter outline to sketch out some areas for consideration under each question, but these are very much subject to addition and reorganisation as the research progresses. All chapter titles are provisional and intended more as an aide memoire. My sources are discussed in further detail in the accompanying literature review, and listed in the bibliography. i) The Economic Apple This chapter will form the spine of my social and cultural research and provide the answers to my first question in what ways did the Victorians consume apples? I shall
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consider the economic importance of the apple, and investigate if its value as a commodity changed during the Victorian era. My hypothesis is that varieties of sweet eating apples were considered valuable, and this is evidenced by the effort and expertise that was put into developing new varieties, both by amateurs and for commercial orchards. There is also evidence in the court cases of the day (written up in the Old Bailey records and in the local press), showing that apple trees were worth going to court over, with owners seeking compensation for theft or damage. Victorian agriculture suffered periods of depression but there is evidence that fruit farmers, particularly those in East Anglia, were shielded from the effects of this, as they were not dependent on corn or livestock prices, and their crop survived the unusually harsh winters of the period. In the East of England and the Home Counties the commercial apple crop was not grown on large scale orchards, but on a whole network of small orchards and market gardens. There is evidence of these in, for example, the maps around Wisbech, which show orchards circling the town, far bigger than could be needed to supply the town alone. Wisbech acquired a railway line and this led to further expansion of the orchards, particularly to grow the new Bramley Seedling variety for cooking. High pectin apples went into cider and, particularly in East Anglia, into jam. Family jam making enterprises such as Chivers also put money into apple development there is a variety still extant called Chivers Delight. This demonstrates that the apple was becoming commodified, in that it was put into more complete products; it had added value rather than just being sold as a raw ingredient by the costermongers. The apple was, of course, a very familiar foodstuff to the Victorians, and the costermongers who sold them were an accepted part of the urban street scene. For writers and commentators the apple woman, however, lacked the romantic appeal of the girl selling oranges or posies; rather costermongers were renowned among the literate classes for their poverty and rough manners. For example, here is an extract from one journalists fastidious report of his penetration into a den of vice; a costermongers free and easy The costermongers have not very strict notions of meum and tuum; they are not remarkable for
keeping all the commandments; their reverence for the conventional ideas of decency and propriety is not very profound; their notions are not peculiarly polished or refined, nor is the language in which they are clothed, nor the mode in which they are uttered, such as would be recognised in Belgravia. (Ritchie, Ewing J 1858)

Between the rough costermongers and the clean, rural orchards were the produce markets of London (and other major cities). I have found in one contemporary source tables
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showing the numbers of bushels of apples that were processed by the various markets, but I have not been able to find many contemporary sources or other information to cross reference the quantities. I hope to investigate the archives of the Fruiterers Guild and any other leads; perhaps in the Museum of London. At present I cannot find evidence of any academic research into this area. Part of the investigation of the apple as a commercial product could develop into researching products that were for sale at the time, such as tinned or bottled fruit and various preserves and desserts. I feel that this strand of the investigation is the appropriate place to consider how apples were used in the domestic kitchen (and in restaurants); even a brief study of Victorian cookery books confirms that apples were used in many different dishes, and cooked apples were also considered a safe food for infants and invalids. Catering for these groups takes up a large proportion of many standard family cookery books. Since the apple is so perishable, there is little advertising for it apple products had a short shelf life and, in this era before frozen or chilled food, were made and consumed locally in bakeries and restaurants. However how much the apple was enjoyed by all classes is illustrated in the wide variety of recipes, some of them very ornate and fine dining; the apple was not just baked, stewed or put in a pie, but could become a dainty dessert for guests. The Symbolic Apple This incorporates the themes of class and culture, woven into a thread of symbolism, where the apple pickers, and the life of the orchard, stand for nostalgia for a feudal way of life that the Victorians saw being overturned. Down in the orchard, however, the Wassail ceremony, like many harvest and seasonal rites, had a suggestion of anarchy in which the feudal order was, briefly, set aside if not overturned. In some regions a small boy was hoisted into the apple tree, and took on the part of the master of ceremonies that one might expect would be taken by the land owner. In nearly all Wassails the land owner was expected to provide food and especially drink for the workers, and to serve them personally. Under this theme I could consider the importance of the farmed landscape, or rather the representations of farming and its ideals, to the Victorians, and specifically I will investigate how the Victorians perceived the orchard and used it symbolically as a space performing particular functions. Recent research has expanded the idea of reading the landscape, and feminist historians have introduced the idea of the gendered landscape, largely through literary examples. I am interested in exploring the idea of the orchard as a very specific, unique space; part garden, part farmed landscape. As an enclosed space it is female
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in nature, decorative, widely held to be peaceful and safe. Examples that I have found so far esteem the orchard as a symbol of an ordered bucolic landscape that many Victorian writers contrasted favourably with the changing urban environment, which they felt was a physical desecration and a morally destructive force on the country. Certainly apple growing resisted mechanisation or large scale farming practices that were found in other crops. Since the majority of growers were either smallholders or small scale tenant farmers, it was in their own interests for the countryside to remain unchanged. Apple harvesting was a community effort, with woman and children helping to gather the crop. It usually took place in good weather and was observed by artists, writers and memoirwriters to be a time of celebration and plenty. This community spirit is partly what the instigators of modern Apple Days and community tree projects are hoping to re-capture. Woods and forests have a long history of a place of the other wilderness originally meant a thicketed wood, not a vast open space. With their shadows and possibilities for escape, woods have attracted outlaws, poachers and many looking for an alternative lifestyle. In the Victorian era there are examples of alternative religious sects attempting to set up new Edens in forests, and trees retained their older mysticism and symbolic references throughout the Victorian era, even at a time of strong Christian observance. That such deference was paid to trees can be seen as a way of counter-balancing the middle class, urban discourse that came to prominence at the time. The Cultural apple It follows from consideration of the apple as a symbol of the old order that the apple finds its way into the Victorian pre-occupation with class and status. I will consider how the apple can be used to illustrate Victorian concerns with rural poverty and the urban underclass, and if Victorian writers freighted apples with the same symbolism. I will discuss the answers to my second question how did the Victorians see the apple and consider specifically why these ideas were important to Victorian society, and what did social commentators feel was lacking or had been lost; what was it that Victorian bucolic art was reacting against? I will take as an example the representations of women with apples, since such works of art and social commentaries demonstrate both ends of the class spectrum. Representations linking feminine beauty with the apple start with Idrun the Norse Goddess, and continue through classical Romans with their Goddess Pomona, the goddess of harvest and fruit, who was shown carrying a basket of apples Pomona is Latin for apple. Classical representations linked the apple with femininity and peace the Greek myth of Atlanta demonstrates an
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independent woman athlete being tamed (or duped) into the feminine role of lover (and wife) by the temptation of golden apples. Eve became rapidly linked to the apple in early Christian art, although the fruit is not defined as such in the Hebrew texts, just as a fruit. Early Medieval representations of the Adam and Eve story used the apple as it was a fruit well known to both artist and worshippers, and easily seen in a painting across some distance. At a time when artistic representations of Christian themes were in flux for example the varying depictions of Lucifer the link between Eve and the apple was determined very quickly, and has remained as a constant. Eve became a symbol of sexual womanhood, of all the characteristics that were considered to be weaknesses or faults of the female nature deviousness, trickery, guile, inconstancy, faithlessness, sexual enthusiasm, (leaving aside the obvious truth that men can possess these traits as well); thus Eve became the opposite to the Virgin Mary, both being necessary to hold the idea of the other. In secular representations, the apple became linked to a class that was particularly celebrated by the mid and late Victorians the unmodernised rural working class, in particular the apple cheeked country maiden. Agricultural workers were viewed as the antithesis of the corrupted, pale, dirty, unhealthy urban slum dwellers, but of course the mass migration into cities meant that most slum dwellers had been country maidens only a few years or months previously, and conditions in country cottages were often as cramped, insanitary and morally lax as in any of the slums of London. Henry Mayhew, walking through those slums and interviewing their inhabitants, described the costermongers in detail, and noted that they had formed a distinct tribe with their own language and customs. I will explore the origins of the costermongers and their association with apples in particular, and their representations in the Victorian press, as an example of the concern with the behaviour of the lower orders. The apple is seen as something wholesome in the midst of the city cooked apple in particular was recommended as part of the diet of infants, and it held enough attraction for children to try to steal apples from the carts. It was a pure item unlike milk or bread there was no way in which an apple could be adulterated, and therefore it was associated with innocence, claiming it back again from Eve and the idea of the apple as evil. However the apples strongest symbolic association is with the fall of man, and womans sin, and therefore a woman offering an apple can never be trusted, as Snow White, of course, discovered.
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Apple growers are an interesting representation of the social structure. The Victorian era saw a huge increase in the number of apple varieties being grown. Many of these were bred up by the gardeners on large estates, and although they put the work in (literally the hard graft) the apples were named after their employers. Examples of such named varieties still extant include Lady Henniker and Lord Burleigh. These professional gardeners often carried off the prizes at local flower and produce shows, where their employer may be acting as judge. One step down from estate gardeners in status could be found the dedicated hobby breeders, the vicars and local squires who were putting their spare time into breeding new varieties of apples to suit their own fancy. Class was not fixed within the Victorian period and many social commentators were concerned with the pace of change. The impact of Darwins publications must be considered both on botany and on its implications for the social order. Perhaps some growers were breeding good apples well behaved trees. Certainly the language in some of the apple catalogues is bordering on anthropomorphic, describing apples as handsome or reliable. Threats to the existing order saw many writers looking back to the feudal order, and especially to strengthening the family structure; attaching increasing importance to family, domestic celebrations such as Christmas. This moved away from being an occasion for communal feasting and into the domestic parlour, attended by closest family and friends only. The riotous wassail celebration became a sweet drink served to the adults in the family. Victorian writers re-interpreted some Christmas traditions and moved them within the domestic setting. These writers were reacting against the growth of cities and towns, and the uncertainty that was around them in the doubts about religions, evolution and the changes in social order, especially in the later Victorian era, where certainty was dwindling. Methodology The apple is particularly suited to a thematic study, drawing on new areas of research within history including landscape history, gender history, history of the emotions and branches of food history. I will also look to anthropology, social sciences, literature studies and psychology for further insights into the actions of those who cultivate, eat and celebrate apples. My research will take an interdisciplinary, holistic approach, analysing representations of the apple within folklore, literature, art, culinary works and some material artefacts. My sources are discussed in the literature review.

Joanna Crosby Dept. of History Jan 2013

Scope I have been reading around the theory of materials culture, or materials history, which is a new field to me. There is cross-over between materials history and food history, but an apple itself is a very temporary artefact, a consumable product. At present I feel that looking at surviving artefacts (cider presses, apple barns, kitchen gadgets) takes me further away from the apple itself. I have found, however, that looking at (and eating) the Victorian apple varieties that are extant does have some merit, in that I can gain an insight into what the Victorians esteemed in an apple. There are newspaper reports of apples that grew to a large size (measured in girth, more often than weight) and of trees which produced a great quantity of apples. The extremes of size, shape and colour in these old apples are striking to a modern consumer, and something that the champions of heritage varieties today seem to enjoy and comment upon the most. Therefore I will incorporate the debates and insights from the field of materials culture, but discussion of apple artefacts and relics, other than the varieties themselves, will be outside the scope of this research. I am setting some practical limits on my research, especially that conducted on primary sources. For examples of commercial orchards I will consider those in East Anglia, especially the Bramley orchards around Wisbech. I will consider the economic evidence for how apples were bought and sold in London, particularly in the Fruit Markets of the period. Although there is plenty of material on the cider industry in the West Country I feel that cider production is a separate topic, and I will not consider it except tangentially. I will look at cider in regard to Victorian attitudes to alcohol, and the survival of the Wassail and similar rites, but I do not wish to examine the economics of cider making. Talks Attended I have been looking for seminars and conferences on food history or studies, which, as a growing subject, often attracts speakers from across the disciplines as well as from the food trade. I have attended the Oxford Symposium on Food and Cookery twice, first in 2007, when the theme was 'authenticity' and again in 2011 when the theme was 'celebration.' In 2011 I presented a paper on the wassail tradition, which was well received and has been published in the Symposium papers. Oxford attracts some notable food historians including Warren Belasco, Paul Levy, Ken Albama and Bee Wilson.
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I have also attended the Leeds Food Symposium twice; the first time was at least eight years ago, and the theme was cookery books. This year the theme was 'vegetables' with Malcolm Thick and Ivan Day as the key speakers. This year I have been invited to speak on apple folklore, as the theme is 'fruit.' In the autumn of 2011 Cambridge Universitys Centre for Research into Arts and Social Sciences and Humanities (CRASSH) set up the Food and Drink network. I attended as many of the seminars in the Michaelmas term as I could, including: Intoxication and Sociality: The Symposium in the Ancient Greek World with Professor Robin Osborne (Classics, University of Cambridge); Dialogues in Trust: Eating in India, Bangladesh and Britain with Dr Manpreet Janeja (Social Anthropology, University of Cambridge); Routes to Food Consumption in Deep History Professor Martin Jones (Archaeology, University of Cambridge) and History, Food and Drink with Dr Phil Withington and Dr Lizzie Collingham (History, University of Cambridge). Unfortunately work commitments meant I was not free so often in the Lent and Easter terms, but I attended Weighty matters Lessons from Historical Body Mass with Deborah Oxley (Professor of Economics, University of New South Wales); Brimmers and boozers materialities, identities and politics of drinking in Early Modern England with Dr Angela McShane (V & A RCA History of Design) and Eating as a Moral Philosophy with Richard Wilk, (Anthropology, Indiana University) and a discussion seminar on Delight and disgust the alteration of the senses led by Lizzie Collingham and Mark Jenner (History, University of York). I also attended the Comparative Social and Cultural History seminars at Clare College, since they were exploring food themes. In 2012 I attended conferences to improve my knowledge of current themes and debates in the fields of social and cultural history, and to increase my connections to other researchers. In March I attended the one-day conference of the Histories of Home Subject Specialist Network , entitled Whats cooking? Food and eating at home. In May I attended Putting Historical Theory Into Practice, a one-day study day organised by the Centre for History and Theory at Roehampton University and History Lab. The interactive sessions looked at current historical theory and the ways in which theory can be used in producing historical research. I have since attended a number of the methods workshops organised by the History Lab and hosted and presented by doctoral students from different universities. These have been really useful for making me feel connected to my academic peer group; something that I otherwise unavoidably miss out on as a part-time student at some distance from my campus. Recently I attended a one-day course at the British Library on using
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archives to research food issues. Although most of the speakers were from a social science background the themes and methodology were common to all. Key speakers included Stephen Mennell. Speaking engagements 2013 I am booked to speak on aspects of the history of the apple to the following groups: Leeds Symposium on Food History Cambridgeshire Orchard Conference Plant Heritage Group Herbal History Group Scotsdales Garden Centre Apple Day Bourne Garden Club I have recently given a short interview on local radio about the TCOPs Wassail Weekend.

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Literature Review Scope In these preliminary stages my research has been primarily text-based, and more wide-ranging and superficial than detailed. In the first few weeks of study I took steps to refresh my skills as an academic researcher and historian, after a decade away from academia. I therefore read and considered discussions on the current trends in historiography, with particular focus on the postmodernist school. Since my research is of necessity, and inclination, multi-disciplinary, many postmodern techniques, especially semiotics and textual deconstruction, are essential tools. I discovered in my preliminary reading that they are now so much part of the mainstream analytical methods that any social and culturally focussed study would seem incomplete without them. This initial review, therefore, is confined to those works that are, hopefully, relevant to the research topic, and does not include sources that I consulted to improve my research skills. Those are however listed in the attached bibliography. I begin with primary sources, which I am defining as any text, artwork etc created during the Victorian era itself. I have not differentiated between those I have accessed in the original and those accessed as reproductions or online. Primary Sources In 1847 D T Fish published The Apple, its history, varieties and cultivation, which, although thorough, was only one of a number of books on the subject of pomology. In the mid-Victorian era, apples in particular and fruit in general were a popular subject for scholarly enquiry as well as horticultural practice. In 1851 Robert Hogg outdid Fish with his British Pomology. In the introduction he acknowledged his sources, notably George Lindleys A Guide to the Orchard and Kitchen Garden (1831) and the catalogue of apples compiled by Mr Robert Thompson, Fruit Superintendent at the Royal Horticultural Society. (He did not include Fish, presumably because Hoggs work would have been almost complete at the time of Fishs publication). Hogg noted that there had been such growth in the varieties of apple that both Lindleys and Thompsons work required updating. In their
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respective introductions both Lindley and Hogg romanticise about the apple; Hoggs opening sentence, There is no fruit, in temperate climes, so universally esteemed and so extensively cultivated, nor is there any which is so closely identified with the social habits of the human species as the apple sets the tone of his text. Lindleys catalogue of apple varieties, which forms over half of the text, describes them in terms that could be applied to children; St Padleys Pippin is a very neat and excellent dessert apple. The Nonesuch is handsome and the Pomme de Neige is beautiful and singular. Both works consider the origins of each variety they describe to be of importance as much a part of the description of the apple as its taste or how to cultivate it and of interest to their readers. This interest in the story and symbolism of the apple can be found in other texts of the period (and of the present day), even cookery books. Georgiana Hills contribution to the Household Manual series, How to cook apples shown in a hundred different ways (1864), states in the introduction that an apple is the emblem of temptation: in the language of flowers, its blossoms denote preference; and in the interpretation of dreams, apples are indicative of joy and gladness. Which last seems somewhat contrary to the emblem of temptation, and demonstrates the dual nature of the apple as both pure and sinful. I am using Hogg (who leans on Lindley) as my key primary text, because his history of the apple in cultivation has been proved through the works of later horticulturalists to be the most reliable and accurate, and because of the high status Hogg achieved in his life within Victorian horticulture and botany (his biography is given in Morgan, 2002). Hogg sees the apple as a native plant, the sweetness and different varieties being attributed to man-made selection or natural hybridisation. He also draws on examples from Celtic literature to show that the apple was known to the ancient Britons, before the arrival of the Romans. He therefore dispels the popular idea that the Romans introduced the sweet apple to England; whereas Fish is vague about the history of the eating apple and can only say it is generally supposed that the Romans were responsible. Hogg also demonstrates that the apple was not lost to cultivation entirely between the departure of the Romans and the Tudor period. Indeed Hill also notes that Tradition tells us that the brightest ornaments to the monasteries of the Middle Ages were the flourishing apple gardens which surrounded them although she gives no sources for this. Hogg, and to a slightly lesser extent, Lindley, note the confusion of names for apples there are lists of synonyms for almost every variety, and local pronunciations add to the mix. For example, an apple famous in the period, the Norfolk Beefing, (still grown today) is listed in Lindley as the Norfolk Beaufin and undoubtedly a
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Norfolk variety. Lindley notes that many thousands of these apples are dried by the bakers in Norwich, annually, and sent in boxes as presents to all parts of the kingdom, where they are universally admired. Hogg, however, describes the apple as German in origin, records that the apples are baked in ovens, and form the dried fruits met with among confectioners and fruiterers and called Norfolk Biffins. He believes Beefing to be the correct name, from the similarity the dried fruit presents to raw beef. Beaufin, to Hogg, erroneously implies a French origin for this variety. The Biffin is the apple delicacy mentioned in Dickens Christmas Carol Norfolk Biffins, squab and swarthy, setting off the yellow of oranges and lemons, and in the great compactness of their juicy persons, urgently entreating and beseeching to be carried home in paper bags and eaten after dinner. (first published 1843). This etymological discord makes tracing the origins of any apple now extant a difficult undertaking; modern DNA tests in use at the National Fruit Collection are likely to see a reduction in the number of genetically distinct varieties. What remains from Hogg and Lindley, however, is a sense of the desire, the need, to classify every apple tree. Hogg lists 942 different named varieties. Both authors claim that they have made extensive tours of the country studying the different growing conditions and local varieties. Hogg makes an attempt to classify apples by their characteristics, drawing on the work of German botanists, but then gives a more useful classifications by colour, season of ripening and growth habits. These categories have survived as of practical use to gardeners; see Mikolajski (2012) for an example. Lindley lists 214 separate apples, saying, in defeat, that the variety of apples is far too numerous to attempt any thing (sic) like a complete description: even to enumerate them would be a most difficult task, owing to the great uncertainty of their names among nurserymen, gardeners and orchardists, and the multiplicity of names under which they are known in different parts of the kingdom.Lindley blames the growers and nurserymen for not checking the origins of their stock, and so leading gardeners to perpetuate the errors. As well as the factual information on the development of the apple as a crop and a favourite tree for gardeners, what is valuable from Hogg and Lindley is the tone of enthusiasm for the apple, and the pride in its growers. Hogg gives his volume extra authority by citing the work of the Royal Horticultural Society, and his work references scientific language. It is therefore possible to deconstruct and evaluate Hoggs work as a text, as well as reading it for the content. It conforms to the structure of other works on the apple, beginning with the history and leading into lists of varieties. The language has a tone of certainty, and the use of Latin quotes indicates the level of education that Hogg expects from
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his readers. This text can be compared to Darwins entry on the apple, in The Variation of Animals and Plants Under Domestication, (1868) which, although more academic in tone, especially in his use of references, conforms in content on the difficulty of differentiating apples. Darwins focus, however, is different: In the catalogue of apples published in 1842 by the Horticultural Society, 897 varieties are enumerated; but the differences between most of them are of comparatively little interest, as they are not strictly inherited. No one can raise, for instance, from the seed of the Ribston Pippin, a tree of the same kind.(1868 vol 1) For Hogg, and for growers and appreciative consumers of apples then and now, it is precisely this characteristic that gives the apple its particular interest. Hoggs bibliography provides details of other Victorian texts on the apple, and reveals the earlier works Hogg saw as authorities on the history of the apple. Hoggs bibliography lists works on horticulture from the seventeenth century, as well as works from Germany and France. Illustrated Floras were in fashion at the time of Hoggs work, with the development of botanical painting and improvements in colour printing techniques decreasing production costs and making the volumes more available. Pomonas, beautifully illustrated catalogues of fruit varieties, were part of this fashion, and Hogg cites both Pomona Londonensis, compiled by William Hooker, editor of the Botanical Magazine, and, the even more decorative, Pomona Britannica, compiled and illustrated by George Brookshaw. The effort, time and expense given to producing such works demonstrates that the Victorians perceived apples as much more than a humble ingredient of pies or cider, but as decorative elements in even the finest and most fashionable gardens. In the introduction to his Pyrus Malus Brentfordiensis, Hugh Ronalds says there seems no reason why a fancy should not be indulged in Apples as well as in Tulips, Ranunculuses &c., as they present the greatest and most beautiful variety of any species of fruit, and so eminently combine the useful with the agreeable. There were also many books and periodicals offering practical advice for the new gardener in Victorian suburbs or the expanding market towns. The authority and expertise of the gardener to the nobility on the large country estate added status to these publications when they were drafted in as authors, or when an aristocrat provided the introduction. For example in 1847 The Gardeners Monthly devoted two volumes to The Apple, carefully noting the authors as George W Johnson and R Errington (Gardener to Sir Philip Egerton, Bart). This style was perhaps continued from early recipe books, such as the closet of the eminently learned Sir Kenelm Digby, opened (1669), although cookery books written in the Victorian era tend to stress that they are for the private family, the domestic cook, and offer
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advice on economy, rather than status and display. (See below) Domestic gardening was such a popular hobby in mid-Victorian England that weekly publications appeared, such as The Gardeners Chronicle, which began in 1841. References to apples occur often in The Chronicle, usually in the form of a note from a reader or contributor, enquiring about their apple tree and its growth. There is discussion over the nomenclature of varieties and descriptions of various trees. Questions of practical horticulture, such as feeding or pruning, appear far less frequently. The other regular reference to apples in the Chronicle is contained within the reports from the London wholesale fruit markets, where the wholesale price of apples is listed, when in season, weekly. This shows that the magazine was intended to reach commercial growers as well as amateur gardeners. However it appears that James Webber is not the most enthusiastic of correspondents, since most of the reports describe trade as quiet, dull or no alteration. Webber record s the imports of apples from Canada and America, which are suppressing domestic sales. A detail for further enquiry is that the quantity of apples is given in sieves, but at present I have not been able to find the capacity of the sieve. In The Food of London (1856) George Dodd attempts to calculate how much fresh fruit is brought into London. He first notes the difficulty of obtaining reliable data, and attempts to make a definition of the bounds of London, deciding that it ends in the belt of market gardens that ring the city. Dodd takes his figures from the work of Mayhew, published in The London Chronicle in 1849. The total estimate of fruit traded through London markets is given as 17, 150 tons per year. Dodd comments One would almost imagine, looking at the formidable array, that Londoners had nought else to do but eat sacks of vegetables and bushels of fruit. and it is interesting to note the importance given to fresh fruit at this time, when the modern perception of the Victorian diet is of little fruit except that cooked in puddings, and few, overcooked, vegetables. In fact eating fresh fruit and vegetables was encouraged, although with some caveats, as expressed in an American book, The Market Assistant (Voe, de 1867) which gives an undated quote from The Journal of Health Be it remembered that the eating of ripe fruit does not imply the necessity of swallowing the skin and stone or seed, as many are in the fashion of doing. Certain it is--to say nothing of the labor to which the poor stomach is put on the occasion--nature never intended those parts of the fruit to be eaten. Eliza Acton also warns against the fashion for serving vegetables crisp, on the grounds of health. Mayhews London Labour and the London Poor (1861), drew attention to the lives of the Costermongers the fruit sellers, who, Mayhew relates, saw themselves as a separate
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tribe and had particular habits. Mayhew uses quotes from Beaumont and Fletcher and Dr Johnson to illustrate the costermongers lineage and long history. Mayhews portraits of street life are certainly colourful and at times romanticised, but his research was genuine and he was among a cohort of Victorian reformers attempting to draw attention to the terrible living conditions of the poor. His details are fascinating; he gives as much attention to the vagaries of the apple trade as do the costermongers themselves. I shall draw on Mayhew further when considering the use of the apple as a symbol within depictions of the Victorian lower classes, both urban and rural. Current historians are still finding new material in Mayhew; Gallagher uses Malthus and Mayhew to analyse their representations of the physical bodies of the working class as a metaphor for the social organism. (Gallagher 1986). Other texts of the period that I have studied so far have included those giving descriptions of how to cultivate a domestic orchard, such as The Gentlemans House, Robert Kerr (1864) and various cookery and domestic arts books. Mrs Beetons Book of Household Management (1861) lists over a hundred dessert and pudding recipes, demonstrating the British love of sweet things. Apples feature in recipes as diverse as apple snow and apple soup. I do not anticipate making an exhaustive list of apple recipes of the period, since the provenance of such recipes is obscure and often disputed. However my overview has indicated that apples are used in haute cuisine recipes as often as they are in plain or family dishes. Francatelli, chef to Queen Victoria, has a recipe for an elaborate dessert called Apples a la Portuguaise in The Modern Cook (1846, quoted in Currah, 1973). He also has baked apples, apple dumplings, apple pudding and apple-water in his A Plain Cookery Book for the Working Classes (1861). The apple does not have any class attached to it as an ingredient, unlike, for example, certain animal parts, although it does carry the symbolism of what may now be called comfort food. I have, as yet unverified, references that both Queen Victoria and Dickens were particularly fond of baked apples. The last strand of primary information about the apple comes from almanacs, day books and similar compendiums about rituals and customs, which recount descriptions of wassailing and other folklore. One example that I have looked at is William Hones The every-day book and table book (1830) However, these must be approached with caution since many mainstream Victorian writers and their publishers were working to a social and cultural agenda that celebrated home, harmony and the sanctity of domestic rituals. Maidment notes that although almanacs had reflected a radical ethos, by mid Victorian times this had faded away, such that 'their Georgic connection with the agricultural year was almost as diluted as
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their distant recall of the demands of the liturgical year.' (Maidment in John and Jenkins (eds) 1996) Roud notes that Victorians had an uncanny knack of clothing their inventions and remodelled traditions in an aura which implied that they were traditional and ancient, (Roud 2000) and this is certainly the case with many aspects of the rural folk calendar, including wassailing, tree dressing and May Day rites. I undertook specific research into the wassail before I began this wider project, and noted that the accounts of wassailing given in almanacs are often re-working of earlier accounts. It is difficult to unpick the earlier ritual from the Victorian re-modelling, but I believe that it is an important theme to explore, since it illuminates the Victorian nostalgia for Merrie England that existed more in the collective cultural imagination. The Victorian desire to keep up old orchards and preserve varieties of apple, as well as encouraging some form of wassail ritual, are all indications of this. I am following the new research into the history of emotions in order to root my belief into current historiography. Other non-fiction primary sources that I will incorporate in my research include national popular press and regional newspapers such as The Eastern Daily Press (obtainable from the Norwich Records Office). I have obtained some interesting information from the court records of the Old Bailey, where certain court cases concerning theft of apples and damage to apple trees has demonstrated the material value of the trees to their owners, even allowing for the high penalties meted out for theft of low-value items. I have begun to research maps of the area around Wisbech, Cambridgeshire. This town was ringed with orchards in the late Victorian period and the new railway ensured that London was a ready market for the apple crop. I have looked at maps drawn in 1837, where although the land is agricultural, no orchards are listed, and in 1887, where orchards, likely to have been Bramley apples underplanted with gooseberries (Mason 2010), are shown surrounding the small town. I intend to visit the archives of the Wisbech museum next year, and to consult the tithe maps held in the National Archives. At present I am concerned that I have not been able to determine many primary or indeed secondary sources on commercial fruit growing, apart from a few nursery catalogues (such as those from the Rivers Nursery). I would like to trace manuals for commercial growers, which would give evidence on the spacing of trees at the time, and possibly on what varieties were best for larger scale production. There are some gardeners records from large estates (eg Audley End) but I have not found anything purely commercial. I am also trying to trace the records from the British Pomological Society, which was founded by Dr Hogg and existed from 1854 1864 (Cambridge University Library has the Transactions from 1857)
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before being subsumed into the Royal Horticultural Society, and of the Woburn experimental fruit farm (which was a project endorsed by the RHS), as well as the RHS own orchards at Chiswick. I also intend to bring in examples from memoirs, novels, childrens books and nontext primary sources where appropriate. I recently attended the exhibition Pre-Raphaelites: Victorian Avant Garde (Tate Britain, London 2012) and I am collating examples of the apple, both actual and symbolic, in Victorian painting, poetry and popular culture. During 2013 I will undertake visits to archives that I have identified as holding useful primary source material. These are: The Royal Horticultural Society, The National Fruit Collection at Brogdale Farm (archives curated by the University of Reading), The University of Cambridge Botanic Garden (which holds a collection of pomonas), Kew Garden archives, the Brotherton Collection of cookery books at the University of Leeds, The National Archive, Norwich Records Office, Wisbech Museum archives and Cambridge History Archives (which holds a collection of material from Chivers jam plant). Secondary Sources My initial literature review has included texts exploring the following themes; i) theory of the Victorian era overall The Victorian era has undergone several re-evaluations in recent times and I find that the works on the era now being published have given Victorian studies greater academic credence to an era which, when I first studied it, seemed to be one where there was little left to discover. I eased my way back in to the social and cultural evaluation with Matthew Sweet, Inventing the Victorians, (2001) where he debunks the myths that the Victorians were, among other traits, earnest and prudish, and demonstrates that modern society has much in common with Victorian times, outwardly in its leisure pursuits, love of spectacle, novelty and gadgets, and inwardly in a surprisingly tolerant attitude towards differing expressions of sexuality, loss of religious faith and alternative lifestyles. Seeing the Victorians as ourselves in different clothes is an idea explored in Victorian afterlife: postmodern culture re-writes the nineteenth century, (Kucich and Sadoff (eds) 2000) where the contributors consider how the cultural critic views the modern interpretations of the Victorian period, and how their investigations construct a history of the present by writing about rewritings of the Victorian past. I would argue that constructing, or at least commenting on, ones own era is inevitable when writing about the past; deconstructing Victorian texts about the early history of the apple will inform me about all three eras that under discussion, that of the writer, and my own. I have found
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Christopher Kents article Post-Thompson, Post-Foucault, postmodern (in Victorian Studies 1996) Postmodernism for Historians by Callum Brown (2005) and Deconstructing History by Alan Munslow (1997) to be the most helpful works in negotiating my way through postmodern history theory. I have read the principle arguments in Debords The Society of the Spectacle (1983) and some of Foucaults writing; the theory of heterotopias is something that I will be able to discuss when considering the significance of orchards and gardens. I have also become intrigued by the idea of gendered landscapes, and particularly Jacqueline Labbes insight that womens landscapes are enclosed and at ground level, where as masculine views take in the unbounded landscape from the high ground or exposed vantage point. This would make an enclosed orchard a particularly feminine space, which feeds into the symbolic weight of the apple perhaps the fruit most closely aligned to the female. (Labbe 1998). I recognise that I need to become more adept at incorporating theory within my research, and I intend to read and refer to it throughout my studies, rather than devoting one particular period of time to it, so that it will underpin my more specific research. ii) materials culture Asa Briggs study of Victorian things (1988) drew out the social history narrative from nonelite items such as the safety match. Since then, materials culture has become a fashionable way of understanding the past. Certainly the Victorian era lends itself to study of its commodities, since it was the period that discovered, if it did not name, the concept of added value, and revelled in trade, new commodities and advertising. Thomas Richards notes that: 'This series of advertised spectacles perfected the process by which the middle class justified the ways of capital to man. (1991) He uses Debords definition of spectacle as the medium by which messages of capitalist stability were transmitted to, and within, the middle classes. However he asserts that the consumer economy did not reach the working class until the end of the Victorian era; the costermongers, not dealing in manufactured or altered goods, were outside consumer culture. Thorstein Veblen, writing in 1899, defines the leisure class in part by their conspicuous consumption of socially visible consumer goods. However, A H Miller (1995) deconstructs Victorian novels to allow them to be viewed through the commodities contained with them. His reading of Our Mutual Friend and of Vanity Fair turns on the aspirations of working class characters to acquire high status goods. It seems to me that working class, urban people would surely have been affected by advertising, even if it was not intended for them, just as consumers are today. Victorian neoconsumers would also be affected by displays in shop windows (made beautiful with electric
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lights and plate glass) and contact with higher income folk displaying new goods and fashions. As Stearns (2006) notes, from 1850 onwards, department stores added to the atmosphere of urban shopping areas, turning shopping from a prosaic activity into an event. Although they only accounted for five percent of shopping, they were the showcase for new materials such as Celluloid and Rayon, and displayed how new items should be used or worn. Food has become a useful commodity for considering the interplay of personal desires with economic motivators. As Bruce Pietrykowski puts it A key question for social economists is whether material pleasure and the symbolic expression of identity through consumer goods is compatible with a more politicized, socially conscious consumption ethos. (Dofsma (ed) 2008) It may be possible to characterise the apple as a domestic product, rather more than a simple ingredient, and one of those few items not transformed by the progress of commodification into kitsch (Richards) or topical commodities. If the increase in apple varieties and efficient growing methods, both commercial and amateur, is part of the Victorian march of progress, it seems to me that the apple as a symbol within Victorian culture is outside that forward drive, and indeed is used to represent the longing to slow down progress or to reverse it and return (at least in culture) to an agrarian idyll. iv) landscape and orchards Under this theme I have reviewed texts on subjects including agriculture, the changes to the rural landscape and society, and Victorian attitudes to it, and the emotional and psychological importance of the landscape to the English national identity. I am thinking about how an orchard fits into the man-made, but idealised, landscape, alongside other representations of rural life and work. The Victorian orchard looked pleasing; even in commercial orchards any technology of picking and packing was kept out of the way. Families picked apples together, adding to the observers image of rural communal harmony. This symbolism became more resonant during the agricultural depression of the 1880s, when orchard and soft fruit growing was the area of agriculture least affected by the slump in cereal prices. Happy apple pickers was one sector of the rural economy that could be represented without guilt. Coppock (1956) notes that there are difficulties with the accuracy of the agricultural statistics of the time, since some orchard land was recorded as market gardens, while orchards underplanted with soft fruit were often recorded as a soft fruit area, and those with sheep grazing underneath as pasture. Martins and Williamson (2008) note that commercial fruit farms had begun to operate in the Fens as early as 1850, and that fruit farmers in this
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region did indeed survive the depression, along with others who diversified into market gardening, pigs, poultry and, above all, dairy farming (an industry less dependent on grain that it is today.) The Victorian landscape, therefore, was certainly changing at a pace that attracted both comments and criticism, from rural and city folk (as documented in E P Thompson). Wilder spaces held increasing allure, not only because of the Romantics and their celebration of natural solitude, but through movements such as the Arts and Crafts and a variety of alternative religions and groups who looked to forests and meadows as a refuge. This is charted in Phlip Hoares book, Englands Lost Eden (2006), which links the actions of the Girlingites, who followed their leader, Mary Ann Girling, into ultimate destitution and homelessness in the New Forest, with a wider desire in society to found and find utopias, connecting with the innocence of natural places. Elizabeth Baigent looks at the Commons Preservation Society, and the campaign to Epping Forest, and argues that Christianity however was a significant motivation for some open space campaigners whose theology explained how nature was to uplift those who experienced it. (2011) She notes that analyses of the Victorian open space movements either consider it founded on anti-modernism and nostalgia, or, as Hoare does, a progressive and democratic movement. Many from each camp agreed that the preservation of significant landscapes, which were overwhelmingly rural, was linked to a changing understanding of national identity. (2011) Roger Ebbatson looks at the England that is given to the reader in the work of Tennyson, Quiller Couch and D H Lawrence, among other writers of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. He notes that, far from being a stable representation, the descriptions are concerned with drawing and re-drawing imaginary boundaries in the light of increasing cultural uncertainties. Landscape representation acts as a carrier of cultural authority through the operation of a complex set of visual or verbal conventions. If modernity and the industrial revolution cut humanity off from persistence and continuity, creating a rift between the self and the environment, in favour of mobility and dynamism, any imagined return to a place is fraught with a sense of the ghostly or the archaic The concept of Englishness is thus produced out of trauma but becomes a potent constellation of values throughout a period especially marked by a crisis of representation. (2005) Nature writing was popular in the Victorian era, as a reaction against urbanisation. It varied in sophistication from the columns of the Dicky Bird Society in the Newcastle Chronicle and other childrens nature clubs, through to John Ruskin musing on landscapes, buildings and nature paintings. Of course there were also scientific enquiries into how the
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natural world functioned, leading to the work of Charles Darwin, among others. But this dissection of natures wonders leaned up against both an increasing sentimentalism and more realistic concern for animal welfare. In Man and the Natural World Keith Thomas argues that campaigns and organisations such as the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals was actually yet another middle-class campaign to civilise the lower orders. (1984), who saw animals as food or working machinery, and also resented similar interference in how they should treat their children. Modern writers about trees and landscapes are using emotive language that John Evelyn, and Ruskin, would recognise. In Beechcombings, Richard Mabey describes his attempt to make sense of the shape and life history of old pollarded beech in Burnham Wood; Im seeing it through a mist now, astonished that I could be so moved by a vegetable [I try to] frame it as a picture, the old Picturesque discipline. But the bony pterodactyl in its halo of green does not look like any ancient landscape painting. Its defiantly modernist. It could be a Miro squiggle, or a bizarre surrealist coupling, or abstract expressionalism gone threedimensional. (2008) Here, Mabey uses imagery from art history, religion and evolution to summon up the age-defying individuality of this tree. There is a narrative of Victorian rural life that charts its decline as more landworkers moved into the cities, and farming began to become mechanised and systematised. 'In 1801 four out every five people lived on farms, in hamlets or in villages: a hundred years later four out of every five lived in towns and cities and earned their livings in ways increasingly unconnected with the now decaying British Agriculture (Burnett, (ed) 1994) Gary Moses (Rural History, 2011) argues that rural popular culture in mid-Victorian years was not diminished, but instead adapted to the changes and continued to be robust in their traditions. I believe that these rituals, especially those that could not be replicated in urban settings such as fire ceremonies or well and tree dressing, served to strengthen the divide between the urban and rural ways of life. This separation, however, added to the appeal of rural life to those now removed from it, and fuelled the various movements looking for an Eden in the countryside. However, as G E Fussell noted, (1949) the life of a rural labourer was extremely hard, with short life spans, ill health, poverty, meagre possessions and constant hunger being far more usual than the idyllic picture of a cottage with roses round the door and a fattening pig and hens in the garden. The cottage was most likely rented, and the garden dug over for winter cabbages and potatoes. Despite this evidence, the charming cottage is such a persistent fantasy that it is still all around the modern consumer of the countryside, not just on the clichd chocolate box lid, but in recipe books, television
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programmes and holiday adverts. The current popularity of creating community orchards and restoring neglected ones is a response not only to a sense of loss of the country ways in contemporary society, but also to the same concerns felt by the Victorians. v) food and taste As Ruark commented on the status of food historian Warren Belasco, "food studies," is much like rice: Once shunned as too ordinary, it's now a hot commodity, available in countless varieties (Ruark 1999) Since then, food studies has grown further into a wideranging but seriously regarded academic discipline. Therefore the number of food-related resources available for research is innumerable, and growing every year. For this initial review I have selected texts that are less empirically concerned with how particular sectors of Victorian society cooked, in favour of those that consider the factors influencing the food choices made by Victorian and modern societies. I have also looked at works that tackle the history of single ingredients, and I discuss briefly below works that have influenced me personally and informed my choice of research subject. The key writers on taste, food and society must include the sociologist Pierre Bordieu, whose Distinction: a social critique of the judgement of taste (1984) opened up the concept of good and bad taste far beyond food, and into the rituals of every self-selected item that societies (in his case the contemporary French middle class) make, use and consume. A year earlier, Anne Murcott had published The sociology of food and eating, (1983) which considered the moral weight that can be attached to food choices, such as a proper dinner. These articles were later added to and expanded in The sociology of food: eating, diet and culture (Menell, 1992) which included articles by another key sociologist, Stephen Mennell. Mennells study of the sociology of dining etiquette, All manners of food, had a long historical scope, from the Middle Ages in French and English courts through to the time of writing. (1985). Meanwhile, historians began to approach food from another angle, taking the journey of diet or a single ingredient as a vehicle to carry a narration of history. Some, such as Colin Spencer in The Heretics Feast, (1994) tracked certain diet choices (vegetarianism) while others considered a single ingredient as emblematic of the passage of history. Foremost among these was Sidney Minzs masterly study of sugar, Sweetness and Power (1986), although among the earliest must be Redcliffe Salamans extremely thorough text The history and social influence of the potato, first published in 1949. Margaret Visser deconstructed an entire ordinary meal of chicken and rice with seasonings, followed by ice cream, considering the history, myths and symbolism of each ingredient before tracking how
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it ends up on the American plate. (Much depends on dinner 1989). Recent studies, written (or at least packaged) for the popular end of the market have included An edible history of humanity (Standage 2010) and Nicola Humbles study of cookery books from Mrs Beeton to now; the book, Culinary Pleasures: cookbooks and the transformation of British food, was published in 2005. More scholarly works have also approached food and cookery books as cultural history, including the new six volume series A cultural history of food, (series editors Fabio Parasecoli and Peter Scholliers, 2012), of which vol. 5 In the age of Empire considers the Victorian diet through themes including food production and systems, eating out, body and soul and food representations. In choosing these themes, the editors and authors are following the current focus of food studies practitioners, who debate the meanings inherent and explicit in the modern meal and why (usually Western) consumers make certain choices, often rejecting sensible choices of nutrition and cost. Ulrik Thoms, writing the chapter body and soul: from tension to bifurcation in the above volume acknowledges that the history of philosophy has split the (physical) body from the (intellectual, emotional) soul. Thoms concedes that, surprisingly, the relation between food, body and soul is seldom discussed head-on in food studies.. [although] eating and drinking, very material activities, are also affective, if not necessarily sensuous activities: they generate sensations and are, in turn, affected by moods. (p165) Deborah Lupton, also, argues that sociologists have ignored food and eating choices, seeing taste and appetite as lower, more basic senses. She believes that food can be classified into binary categories, masculine and feminine, comfort or punishment, healthy or non healthy and, of course, raw or cooked. In this she is taking a postmodernist approach wherein each sign also contains the notion of its opposing sign. Lupton states; Each of these binary oppositions contains the power to shape food preferences and beliefs in everyday life, to support some food choices and militate against others, and to contribute to the construction of subjectivity and embodied experiences.' (1996) All of which esoteric debate stands against the sensual, experiential texts of cookery books, which use particular and familiar phrases and vocabulary (both textural and pictorial) to entice us to cook, or at least to buy and read the book. Cookery books have always been more than compendiums of recipes, and those of the Victorian era usually contained advice on domestic arrangements, managing servants and dealing with minor ailments. (excerpts from the key works, together with notes and commentary can be found in The Victorian Kitchen by Jennifer Davies, 1989). Modern food writers are usually well informed about the heritage of a dish, and there are many which use the ideas of authenticity, or history, to add allure to their recipes, albeit these are usually far removed, or at least updated, from any
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original dish. Food writers often cross the boundaries between history, food studies and cookery writing, as demonstrated by Elizabeth Luard, particularly in European Peasant Cookery (2007), and the series of books on regional delicacies compiled, edited and written by Laura Mason and Catherine Brown (originally one book; The taste of Britain, 2006). The volume on East Anglia (From Norfolk knobs to fidget pie 2007) contains history, recipes and a directory of local artisan producers. A final example of this trend, again picked from my own bookshelf, is English puddings, sweet and savoury, by Mary Norwak (2009). This includes unusual, and often delicious, recipes from the Victorian era, alongside those from Mediaeval and Regency cuisine, with excerpts from the original manuscripts, many of which are otherwise unpublished household recipes. I have read many food-related texts from a number of disciplines anthropology, history, social sciences, geography before I began this doctoral research, and attended food symposiums and conferences. I have also worked as a re-enactor, cooking historical food in modern day settings. My MA thesis concerned the representation of kitchens in English country houses open to the public, and more recently I studied the history of chocolate for about four years while working with a small chocolate company. Therefore I am most confident with this aspect of my research. However, I believe that, fashionable though it may be, the academic discipline of food studies is not yet able to stand alone, outside the remit of another subject such as history, because as a subject it lacks the mechanisms for robust challenge and academic debate. There is a great deal of research into exactly what was eaten, and how, and with what, but rather less concern about why certain foods became status symbols, or were shunned, or were linked to particular life events. Once food choices evolve past hunting and gathering, there is such complexity of choice that perhaps researchers feel that they are moving away from what interests them, the food itself, into another area such as psychology. However I think that, with historys increasing interest in the non-material, such as the history of emotions, together with the parallel development of materials culture, it is possible to dig down past the recipes for apple pies, dumplings and sauce, into the reasons for the consuming of an apple, raw and cooked, symbol of wild landscape and garden, of sin and virtue.

vi) gardens and horticulture

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At present I have not gone deeply into the study of the semiotic reading of gardens, and I have not been able to find many texts that deconstruct a Victorian garden as a social statement. With the enduring popularity of Victorian styles of garden and planting schemes, and the ability to see real Victorian gardens on the ground, there is less critical analysis of the themes and purpose of a garden, and more books aimed at the practical gardener. Books on the history of gardening tend to follow an uncritical story of the so-called development of the garden from the mediaeval bower through to the Victorian cottage garden, with the secondary narrative of the changes in gardening fashions in the grand country houses running in parallel. For example, the exceedingly popular The Victorian Kitchen Garden, (1997) which came from the BBC television series of the same name. I am compiling a reading list that will include alternative readings of gardens and gardening as an activity, especially in relation to the role of women. I am also considering a closer examination of pomonas and other botanical art sources from this angle, since most were illustrated by women. I have been alerted to possibilities of such a reading from the article by Jackson-Houlston (2006) I am also starting to consider the messages contained in visual representations of orchards, including early photography. (See Kocol, 2010) I have used Ray Desmonds bibliographies of Victorian gardening magazines and of actual gardens, to research availability of primary source material. I hope to find more contemporary references directly related to domestic, ornamental fruit growing, and garden planning incorporating orchard areas. There is overlap in this area of my reading list between this, art and culture and apples themselves, so I anticipate that this topic may remain relatively minor in terms of the number of specific garden-focussed sources consulted, although I hope to go deeper into the study of why Victorian gardeners created and followed particular fashions, such as the trend for growing fruit for display in the garden and on the dining table. vi) apples The major research on the apple was undertaken by Joan Morgan, who, with Alison Richard published The Book of Apples (1993). This has recently been updated; especially the directory of extant apple varieties, and published as The New Book of Apples (2002). The evolution of the apple was further researched by Barrie E Juniper and David J Mabberley, who published The Story of the Apple (2006). Both books consider the folklore of the apple, and its appearances in art and culture. However, both texts take an empirical narrative stance,
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and the images are listed, largely without comment. The folklore is re-told and accredited back to previous writers on the apple, rather than to a primary text. Indeed, Juniper and Mabberley sidestep the story of the rapid adoption of the apple. Yet for reasons that are not at all clear the apple entered, in every country into which it was brought, and almost immediately, the realms of the village and private residence, poetry, prose, the visual arts, language (including aphorisms), music (including carols) mythology and philosophy. (2006) So far I have not found a text on the apple that incorporates this symbolic apple, rather than nodding towards it. This is not to say that there are no works on apple folklore; of course this story is of great appeal to writers, although it is not unfairly critical to say these are not usually the most scholarly of texts. Richard Folkard Junior published the often cited Plant Lore, Legends and Lyrics embracing the myths, traditions, superstitions and folk-lore of the plant kingdom in 1884. This is a compendium of folk tales and ideas, with little or no attribution, rather than any analysis of them, so that his description of wassailing begins In some places the parishioners walk in procession visiting the principal orchards of the Parish The content, and often the phrasing, of Folkard was repeated by other folklore writers, and has found its way into contemporary books on apples such as A Harvest of Apples (Ward, Ruth 1993) and Apples: a social history (Twiss, Sally 1999) and in the USA Mark Rosenstein uses the same sources in his book In praise of apples a harvest of history, horticulture and recipes. (1996) A more individual view was taken by J Rendell Harris, who declared that the god Apollo was in fact the representation of the northern worship of the apple. The origin and meaning of apple cults (1919) suffers from the weight of scholarship and fixed beliefs of its author, but there are insights within it, and an understanding of the need to look beneath the material representations of tradition. Rendell Harris begins thus: All students of folk-lore are aware that, in collecting and comparing the quaint customs which still linger on the countryside, they are not merely dealing with customs, but with cults that underlie them, with misunderstood rituals and lost divinities ; in many cases the rituals and worships which are thus embalmed like flies in the amber of unchanging or slowly-changing popular habit, turn out to be the very earliest beliefs and the most primitive religious acts of the human race. (1919) As an example of a text using rural mythology to promote a specifically English identity it would be hard to outdo this text. Rendell Harris quotes Aubrey, Evelyn, Hazlitt, Herrick and, of course, Shakespeare to build his case. (I remain unconvinced about the links to Apollo, but I love this book.) Tamra Andrews in Nectar and Ambrosia, (2000) a study of sacred foods around the world, notes that the ancient belief systems used food to feed the
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soul as well as the body and it acted as a means of worship and a social binder. (ibid). As I noted with the recipe books, many books about apples feel the need to put in an introduction or some pages about the apples origin, history and folklore. Andrew Mikolajski includes two pages on apples in history and mythology in The complete world encyclopaedia of apples (2012) Frank Brownings personal reflections on his enthusiasm for growing apples also dwell on the origins of the apple and even give a nod to Rendell Harris when he says some classical folklorists have even traced the Greek sun god Apollo's origin to the apfel worshippers of Nordic forests.' (Apples 1999). There are many books about apples being published each year, and most of them trace the same history and throw in a few out of context folk myths or stories, so that soon it will become harder to trace the origins of the stories than to trace the lineage of the apple varieties themselves.

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