Turns out I’m not the only person obsessed by apples this time of year. In fact, my obsession is rather mild compared to that of Dan Bussey of Edgerton, Wisconsin. In addition to managing a four-acre orchard with 250 apple trees, he’s written a book describing 14,000 varieties of apples.

According to an article published in the October 17 edition of the Wisconsin State Journal, Bussey’s book “will become the definitive guide to apples in North America, a unique resource and the first comprehensive guide to apples in more than 100 years.”

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Too Many Apples, Too Little Time

I started off the weekend thinking that I’d review two apples for this episode of American Apple. There were only two new varieties at the orchard on Friday when I stopped in. But I swung by again Saturday afternoon and there were four more that I hadn’t yet tried! Ack! I selected two of the four. Here are the varieties I ended up working with this weekend:

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Welcome back to American Apple! What a contest we have this week! My trip to the orchard yesterday netted us two new antique apple varieties to try: Wolf River and Carnation, also known as Carpentin. The immediately noticeable thing about the two of them as they sat side-by-side on the scale was the difference in their sizes. Wolf River apples are gargantuan Goliaths. Really, really huge! And Carnations are diminutive little Davids. I felt like I was working with walnuts as I prepared them for pie pan. So the question this week is, will David slay Goliath? Or will Goliath’s flavor match its size?

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