It should come as no surprise to anyone that apples, much like bovines, have been domesticated for quite some time. Unlike bovines, of course, apples neither produce milk nor eat grass. In fact, apples grow on trees, whilst bovines are, as far as we know, not able to climb them. Nevertheless, the point remains.
The first apple trees to have been cultivated, or so it is proposed, were done so in Central Asia some 4,000-10,000 years ago. Whether at this time a daily apple was understood, as it is today, as efficacious in fending off medical professionals is uncertain. What is certain, however, is that the domestic apple (Malus domestica) has progressed from its humble beginnings in the Tien Shan mountains and now enjoys something akin to pride of place in the fruit kingdom; certainly, no other edible sphere of skin and flesh represents so forcefully the aesthetics of the philosophical. Camus, Aquinas, Sartre: all men who, it is said, combined their love of apples with a love of thinking.
Of course, there is no one apple, much as there is no one sausage. To date, there are approximately 7500 types of apple, with 80 million tonnes produced annually worldwide. In the midst of this large and uneven family of cultivars stands the Gala.
It is true that the Gala is not glamorous; it makes no claims to be so. It belongs in no trophy cases or displays. It is neither ostentatious nor extravagant. It exhibits, rather, a humble dignity, a down-to-earthness that is so very absent in many of its cousins. It is smooth, but not overly smooth. Its outer coat is undoubtedly — almost deliberately, one feels — nonuniform, inconsistent. It makes a point to remind us that it is unpretentious; unassuming; a self-effacing fruit which takes quiet pride in its own dependability.
The Gala apple can be relied upon invariably, whether it sits in a farmers’ market or grocery store chain. Its flesh is neither too firm nor too soft. It is crispy without crustiness. Its juice is sweet and refreshing; its aftertaste without any hint of anything sickly.
Consider, if you would, the following poem by Robert Frost:
My long two-pointed ladder’s sticking through a tree
Robert Frost, After Apple-Picking
Toward heaven still,
And there’s a barrel that I didn’t fill
Beside it, and there may be two or three
Apples I didn’t pick upon some bough.
But I am done with apple-picking now.
Essence of winter sleep is on the night,
The scent of apples: I am drowsing off.
No matter what Frost is on about here, and I’m really not sure what it is, this much is clear: apples are a feature in this poem. And one thinks, decidedly, that the cultivar in question could not possibly be Gala — for if Frost were pulling down those dependably palatable fellows, two-pointed ladder sticking up towards heaven, he surely would not be done picking them all that soon.