Fun:Apple

Just a cute red apple

Apples are clearly the single most important fruit ever to be eaten. This is evidenced by just how often it comes up in "the google". Also, the entire world of science owes homage to this common fruit, for had it not hit some dude on the head, we would not have gravity and we'd be falling off the planet! Some people probably think we owe even more (or possibly less, depending) to apples as they're the source of all knowledge and the human condition as it is. Apples are undeniably the source of all cider there is (except in the wacky world of marketing where "pear cider" exists!).

Apples are tricky. Seeds from a really good apple, when planted, will not usually grow a tree that has really good apples. No, the apples will likely be sour and largely inedible (but still perfectly suitable for pressing into cider.) Apple varieties are propagated via grafting, so all apples of a given variety come from a single tree. Thus, the vast majority of eating apples sold in the U.S. each year originated from grafts from a handful of apple trees. This is because apple varieties tend to be heterozygous—that is, they do not "breed true"; the seeds in a yummy apple do not share the same DNA as the tree that produced that yummy apple. China produces about 2/5ths of the world's apples or over 5x the US. Neither Canada nor New Zealand rank in the top 10, as tasty as their McIntoshes and Galas are. Iran produces more than Washington, which accounts for 60% of US production.

Before prohibition, the primary market for apples in the United States was in making hard apple cider and applejack (which is basically distilled hard apple cider). Once prohibition was voted into law, apple growers scrambled to find a new market for their products. The solution? Sell them as health food! The slogan "An apple a day keeps the doctor away" was coined at about this time.

Famous apples

• The Big Apple
• The apple a day that keeps the doctor away
• The apple of my eye
• The Appleachians
• Annappleis
• Minneappleis
• Indianappleis
• Hard Cider
• The computer and mobile device company named after the divine fruit
• The Golden Apple
• The tasty apples that fall from from a tree in a park, ravine, abandoned lot, or properties of risk-adverse types
• Apple Records
• Crabapples
• Eve and the apple
• Fiona the Apple
• Apple, the daughter of Gwyneth Paltrow
• Granny Smith
• Johnny Appleseed
• Mom and apple pie
• Oranges
• Pomme de terre (earth apples—but don't eat them raw)
• Robert mApplethorpe
• Snow White
• Green Apple Quick Step
• Apple Jacks™ (if eaten as candy, and not part of a balanced breakfast)
• apple jack (because to some, distillation of alcoholic substances are some sort of pinnacle of technologicaly advanced drinking)