To All,
After the e-mail on Opal apples (10 Dec 2015), Margy and Doug suggested a trip to Bolton Orchards in Bolton, MA, which is a little over 30 miles from where I live. Margy and Doug praised this as the place to get winter apples. Not only do they store them at the appropriate temperature and relative humidity, as is common, but they store the apples in a chamber with an atmosphere of pure nitrogen. Avoiding exposure to oxygen greatly extends their life. Who would have guessed that bathing apples in nitrogen would prove so beneficial?
With Mike at the wheel, on 30 Jan 2016 Mike, Mei-Mei, and I undertook a road trip to Bolton Orchards. It is set in a semi-rural area; the first picture below shows the entrance, and the second is a close-up of the sign. It's a medium-sized market, though unorthodox in its choice of stock since it focuses heavily on apples.
Apples
When you enter, you have three groups of apples to choose from. First, at the front are apples already loaded into containers; you can buy one quart, two quarts, a peck, or half a bushel. These apples are for the dilettantes who are content to let others select their apples. The pictures show:
- A panoramic picture of these pre-packaged apples.
- A close-up of the Cortland apples, which are in front.
- A close-up of the price list for the Macintosh apples, which are the ones in the back of the first picture.
Second, further back for 99 cents per pound are the so-called bulk apples, which can be used for anything. This is where the action is since in this area connoisseurs gather to select their own apples. Seven types of loose apple were on sale These are displayed in big, traditional bins, and a discerning shopper can paw through the piles of apples to find the most appealing. Here are pictures.
- The sign announcing the bulk apples.
- A picture from one side showing from left to right the bins of Empire, Cortland, Mutsu, and Macintosh.
- A picture from the other side showing from left to right the bins of Red Delicious, Golden Delicious, and Macoun.
Third, off to the right are the utility apples that are not good enough to eat by hand but that are perfect for baking, making apple sauce, or other endeavors where the shininess of the apple plays no role. Here are pictures.
- The sign giving the prices. This works out to about 75 cents per pound.
- The utility apples in their bags.
- More utility apples in their bags.
Scattered around were a number of subsidiary apples products such as apple pies, and there were also the standard items that you would find at a roadside stand such as maple sugar candy and fudge.
I was drawn to the old-timey keg of cider (or at least the facade of a keg) with a tap. You could serve yourself a small paper cup of cider for five cents. I had several. (Modern restaurants have fallen into the deplorable practice of serving portions that are way too big. I approve of being able to buy a nickel's worth of something. Perhaps the Bolton Orchards cider keg will lead the way to more reasonable portion sizes.)
The place also served as a local convenience store. In addition to all these high-end items, there were things like Campbell's soup; they stocked the three traditional flavors of mushroom, tomato, and chicken noodle.
(Continued in Part 2)
