Granny Smith is the world's oldest favorite...

It is often said that many fruits and vegetables do not taste as good as they used to. You only have to walk through a supermarket to realise what a limited range of commercial fruit varieties we have available to us. I was thumbing through old garden catalogues and amazed to find pages filled with plums, peaches, pears and apples of every variety, few of which are grown today. It is sad to think of what has been lost, but fortunately there is one variety of apple known as Granny Smith is still available. This green cooking apple is appreciated around the world, especially as a filling for apple pie. It was named after Maria Smith who, in 1880s grew the first green apple in Eastwood, a neighbouring suburb very close to us. Every year a Granny Smith Festival is organised by the Ryde City Council in spring to commemorate this local heritage. It was held last Saturday and thousands of people flood the Eastwood town centre with colour, noise. parade and food stalls to be part of the annual event. We joined in the celebration by buying a dozen of this old favourite cooking apples and make them into three apple crumble pies for dessert. To give a delightful crimson colour to the pies, we added a handful of mulberries which we have collected from our backyard.



Apple Crumble Recipe.

4 medium Granny Smith apples
3/4 cup water
3/4 cup sugar
1 cup mulberries (optional)
1/2 cup raisins
3/4 cup rolled oats or desiccated coconut.
3/4 cup flour
75g butter

Peel and quarter apples. Remove core and add apples into a saucepan with the water,raisins and 1/4 cup of sugar. Bring to boil, stirring to dissolve the sugar. Simmer for 15 minutes until apples are slightly softened.Add in the mulberries and cook for a minute. Preheat the oven to 180 degree C. Place the cooked apples and mulberries in a baking dish. Mix together the desiccated or oats, flour, butter and remaining sugar, rubbing the ingredients together until the mixture resembles breadcrumbs. Sprinkle over the fruit.Bake for 20 t0 30 minute or until the crumple topping is golden brown.