Iowa: The Birthplace of Delicious
By Chef Kurt Michael Friese
One cool spring morning, about 1880, Madison County farmer Jesse Hiatt was walking the rows of his young orchard when he noticed a chance seedling growing between the rows. Being an orderly man, he preferred that his trees grow in an organized fashion, and he chopped the seedling down. The seedling grew back the following year, and so he chopped it down again. When the seedling sprouted back up a third time, legend has it, Mr. Hiatt said to the tree "If thee must grow, thee may."
Hiatt nurtured the tree for 10 years. When it finally came to fruition, Hiatt was pleased with the red and yellow streaked appearance and the sweet, impressive flavor. He named it the "Hawkeye" after his adopted home state, and began to seek a nursery to propagate his discovery. He was turned down by 8 or 10 of them before his big break came.
He sent it to a contest in Louisiana, MO that was seeking new varieties of fruit trees, especially apples. The Stark Bros. Fruit Company held the competition as part of their search for an apple tree to replace the then most popular tree, the Ben Davis. The Ben Davis had a nice appearance and was durable in shipping, was weather hardy, but lacked flavor. When Clarence Stark tasted the apple with the unusual oblong shape and the distinctive five bumps on the bottom, he pronounced it "Delicious!" Unfortunately, due to some poor record keeping, his name and address were lost and it wasn't until Hiatt re-entered the competition the following year that his Hawkeye was officially the winner.
The Stark Bros Fruit Co. bought the rights to Hiatt's discovery, and began taking cuttings from the original tree at Hiatt's Winterset farm. Study led them to the conclusion that this new variety was probably the result of an accidental cross of two very old varieties, the Bellflower and the Winesap. 60 years later, Stark had sold more than 10,000,000 trees world wide that were all descendants of that original tree. They had renamed Hiatt's Hawkeye after Clarence Stark's original pronouncement, and the Delicious apple was on its way to complete domination of the apple industry.
Back in Winterset, though, the original tree continued to flourish in a state that was second only to Michigan in apple production. In 1940, on Armistice Day (November 11th), a ferocious ice storm leveled Iowa's orchards, a blast from which Iowa's apple industry would never recover. With orchards being expensive to replant and war on the horizon, most orchards were turned into corn and soybean fields. Hiatt's Hawkeye was split in two in the storm, and newspapers and radio commentators across the state lamented the demise of the historic tree. As Hiatt had noted all those years ago though, this little tree "must grow." The following spring it sent up a new sprout right from the middle of the split, and it thrives to this day not far from those historic covered bridges in Madison County. It has a monument to it, a fence and a private horticulturalist to protect it, and a festival in its honor in nearby Donnelson.
Today, the fruit that bears the "Delicious" name has been hybridized out of all resemblance to that original Hawkeye. The yellow streaks are gone, replaced by a seemingly unnatural bright red shine. They are bred for shelf life and durability and crunch, but have lost their original flavor. The apple that once deserved the name "Delicious" is now a mute reminder of the hazards of industrialized standardization in food production.
Through the efforts of the Leopold Center for Sustainable Agriculture at Iowa State University, and the Seed Saver's Exchange in Decorah, Iowa, cuttings from the original tree have been propagated. At Wilson's orchard in Iowa City, owner Chug Wilson's 9-year-old Hawkeye trees are fruiting their second year, and he says this year they look like they will develop fully, ripen and be ready to eat.
Although most grocery stores carry only a few varieties of apples (usually no more that 3 or 4) there are actually thousands of varieties of apples being grown worldwide. Here in Iowa, even 5 years after the Armistice Day freeze, apples were being grown on about 40% of the state's farms. Today that number is less than 1%. Nationally, apple variety and apple growers are suffering from the effects of industrialization and the onslaught of huge amounts of product, especially juice, imported from China (which is now the world's #1 producer).
Add to this the fact that orchards are expensive to start and can take 10 years to yield. Soon it is understandable why the small, sustainable Iowa farmer is not enthused about planting apple orchards. Iowa now produces less than 15% of the apples it consumes. The other 85% travels an average of 1500 miles and takes approximately 8 months to go from tree to table. Is this what the old Quaker farmer Jesse Hiatt had in mind when he sold the propagation rights 110 years ago? Unlikely. The rewards can be great though, for those with the patience to pursue the delights of fresh picked apples.
Local growers can choose from most of the thousands of varieties available. One organization, Slow Food, promotes the growing and consumption of heirloom varieties through its Ark of Taste program. Named for Noah's Ark, the mission is to support high quality, small scale food production; to rediscover, catalogue, and describe foods and flavors in danger of disappearing from our tables; to protect biodiversity; and to champion the art of taste and the right to pleasure. Recently, over 140 varieties of apples boarded the Ark. Slow Food, through its 110 local convivia (chapters) nationwide, promotes the consumption of these apples and everything else on the Ark in order to protect them from extinction. They do this by holding taste education workshops, by connecting farmers to consumers, and by promoting them through the media. More information about the Ark can be found at the website, www.slowfoodusa.org.
If variety is indeed the spice of life, then America is beginning to lead one very bland existence. If we are what we eat, then most Americans are fast, cheap and easy. Industrial standardization will eventually lead to there being only one flavor of apple, pear, corn, beef, you name it. As it says in the original "manifesto" of Slow Food, "A firm defense of quiet material pleasure is the only way to oppose the universal folly of Fast Life." It continues, "May suitable doses of guaranteed sensual pleasure and slow, long-lasting enjoyment preserve us from the contagion of the multitude who mistake frenzy for efficiency."
Globalization may indeed be the rule of the day, and many good things may come of it but it is foolish to throw away the things our predecessors worked so hard for simply to set ourselves on a course to expedient mediocrity. We must protect the beauty and abundance with which we have been blessed by insuring that the need for profit does not trump the need to live full lives. Great food, raised with care, prepared well and shared with the ones we love will help us to live that fuller life.
Jesse Hiatt may have scoffed at the notion of encouraging guaranteed sensual pleasure, but doubtless he would condemn the industrializing of food production as counter to all that honest farmers hold dear.
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Comments: 19
Slow Food is alive and well in Hawaii. It doesn't have a large membership but due to the configuration of our state (separate islands) it had to divide it's membership into separate convivia.
The last event held for the whole state membership was held here on the Big Island and it was a glorious day of farm hopping and then the whole group cooking together at a lovely baby lettuce farm..........
I wrote an article about the day....let me see if I can dig it up
I honestly cannot tell you the last time I had a good peach or plum.
I grow tomatoes, but the season is so short! Next year we will grow a few more things, and maybe I'll freeze some.
Thanks for the inspiration.
And all readers should know we have a Slow Food group here at Gather, too - SlowFood.Gather.com - please join us!
Last December in Ukraine I discovered a glorious apple in the Sumy central market. It was misshapen and so ugly I can imagine it being ignored at a typical US supermarket, but I was told it was the local Sumy (northeastern Ukraine, on the Russian border) apple so I had to try it. Oh, the crispness! The tart sweetness! The wonderful texture! It was not the bright red color that makes supermarket apples look fake to me; it was a pathetic dirty muted red and green--sort of. hard to describe. Do not judge this apple by its cover! I ate some of them out of hand--something I rarely find apples worthy of in US supermarkets, and made apple tart with others. It was lovely! Give me ugly and tasty any day over manufactured-fake-pretty!
Here in Philadelphia, a slow food member organization that works hard to bring us food from local farmers uses the slogan Buy Fresh - Buy Local (farmtocity.org). We can get good local produce every day except Sunday at one farmer's market or another.
I hope Iowans can soon get a regular suply or fresh, local apples.
I also have a peach tree, 3 different pears and 2 plum trees.
I would love to get my hands on an heirloom apple tree plus a couple of sweet cherry trees.
Contact Seed Savers Exchange for heirloom variety cutings, www.SeedSavers.org
Peace,
kmf
You can find our more about Slow Food Atlanta @
http://www.slowfoodatlanta.org/
And while you're at it, watch for the upcoming release of the brand new magazine Edible Atlanta, part of the Edible Communities family of magazines:
http://www.edibleatlanta.com/