The apricot, unusual and little known winter apple, is famous above all for the beauty of its colors, which oscillate between bright red on one side and green and yellow on the other, and even more to be one of the oldest European apples. This apple, today at risk of extinction, it is not easy to find, but it deserves to be known, not only for its characteristics but also, precisely, for its fascinating history.

The small sweet apple appiola

The apple tree appio (or appiolo) is the tree that produces the àppio (or apio), the name of some varieties of apples, also called bees, which includes the apples appiole (in French) bee pomme) as well as the characteristics and even more rare starry appellations, of a similar but distinct cultivar. THE'appiola, also called casolana, is a small fruit (5-6 cm in diameter), with a typical rounded shape and a bit 'flattened. The white pulp has a refreshing scent reminiscent of that of quince, a sweet taste and a juicy, crunchy and fragrant consistency.
This apple is particularly widespread in France and, in French, his name recurs in the famous nursery rhyme Pomme de reinette and pomme d'api, whose refrain, due to a wrong oral transmission, has been transformed into Italian Ponte ponente bridge pì that we all know. In Italy it is possible to find it only in some regions, where it is known with different names, ie in Sicily (milappiu), Calabria (milu lappiu), Basilicata (melaciola) and Sardinia (apiu and melapiu).
It has also been widespread for a long time in the Senio Valley, in Emilia Romagna, as Antonio Morri testified in his 1840 Romagna-Italian vocabulary in which méla apia is defined as "apple appiola or casolana", or in a Casolana chronicle of 1559 where he appears among the gifts that that year were sent to the president of Romagna.

From the apiar it is possible to derive the melàppio, a julep (drink made with fruit juice boiled with sugar, diluted and clarified, from the definition of Treccani) of apple apples, used as a popular remedy against colds. Beyond this curative use, the apple can be used in the kitchen for preserves, jams, sauces, cakes but also for savory dishes such as soups and main courses of meat.

The origins of apple appiola

The first written mention of apple appiola dates back to 1600, when the French agronomist Olivier de Serres told his story from ancient Greece, and in particular from the Peloponnese area, starting from 300 BC, which makes it exactly one of the oldest varieties in Europe. The agronomist cited in his writing a passage from Pliny the Elder, according to which the name derives from the poet and scholar Appius Claudius the Blind, notoriously fond of Greek culture, since he was the first to import the apple cultivation in Italy.
On the name and on the origins there are different theories, such as that of the Dictionnaire de pomologie by André Leroy of 1873 which places its origin in the Apis forest in Brittany, but that of Ancient Greece is considered the most accredited.

Foto: Apple peel (elma tepkisi Yeni Akit)
Photo: Apple appiola (Wikipedia)