Ingrid Marie

As I said in yesterday's blip I'm interested in old-fashioned apple varieties. Another reason, that I didn't mention yesterday, is because the family of my mother-in-law were costermongers who made good and became greengrocers and fruiterers with large shops in London. I grew up with mentions of the quaint-sounding varieties from my mother and my paternal grandmother and then from my MiL.

I went to the Copped Hall Apple Day in Epping. Lots of heritage varieties were laid out in the racquets court and I photographed every one. It was lovely to see Queen, Sturmer Pippin, D'Arcy Spice, and Acme from Essex. There was also Maldon Wonder from the town of my birth. 

I've chosen to post Ingrid Marie as I adore its dark red colour with what look like specks of light shining through. It was cultivated by accident around 1910 on the premises of a school on the island of Funen in Denmark. It was confirmed in 2003 to be a hybrid of Cox and the Danish cultivar Guldborg. It has a relationship to the “Renetten", an old German family of apples.

I'm going to make a collage for my sisters of the apples that I have photographed today. It's strange because my husband's family once bought the entire crop of my grandmother and grandfather's orchard and my husband went to help to pick the fruit before I was born. My mother used to polish the apples sold in my grandparents' roadside stall. If I had made the display at Copped Hall I would have polished every one. :)