| An apple is a many-seeded fruit plant, belonging to the Rosaceae family and the subfamily Maloideae. In a narrow sense, an apple is an apple tree fruit.
The popular belief exists, that the apple was the cause behind original sin; however, nothing is mentioned about an apple in the Book Life. The history about the apple of discord is also popular. Legend exists that it was an apple, which fell on the head of Newton that served as the forerunner to the discovery of the law of universal gravitation.
The native lands of apples are the territory of modern-day Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan, where the apples are still found in a wild form.
In Literature:
The apple of discord in Greek mythology — A golden apple with an inscription "For the most beautiful one", was tossed by the Goddess of Discord Eris into the wedding party of the mortal Peleus and the Goddess Thetis as Eris was disgruntled for not being invited to the wedding. Hera, Athena and Aphrodite began to lay claim for this golden apple. The goddesses asked Zeus to solve this dispute, but instead, Zeus ordered Hermes to give this apple to Paris and appointed him to select the most worthy (justice of Paris). Hera promised power and wealth to Paris and Athena – wisdom and military glory and Aphrodite promised to give the most beautiful woman in the world as his wife. And, Paris recognized Aphrodite as the finest of the goddesses. To keep the promise, the goddess helped Paris to steal the most beautiful of mortal women — Helen, the spouse of Sparta Tsar Menelion. The trojan War thus began with this abduction.
Forbidden fruit — The Christian symbol of sin, the forbidden tempting fruit, which grew in paradise, with which the devil in the form of a snake tempted Eve. Though the apple is not found in the Bible, probably, the forbidden fruit began to associate with it because of the homonym of the Latin words malum "evil” and mālum "apple".
Rejuvenating apples — are items from Slavic tales enabling people to become young.
Apple on Savior of the Apple Feast Day — The Russian name of the Christian holiday “Transfiguration of Christ”, on which, according to traditions, new fruits and berries are blessed. On the days of the previous week, the first harvest of grapes is gathered in Greece and the first apples and plums are ripened in the gardens of central Russia.
Depending on the type, the size of red, green or yellow spherical fruits can be about pea sized or even reach up to 15cm in diameter.
According to maturing time, apples are divided into summer, autumn and winter grades and the winter grades possess good endurance.
The fruits contain apple, wine, lemon and other organic acids, sugar (glucose, sucrose and others), vitamins C, A, В1, carotene, tannin and pectine substances, micro elements (iron, potassium, calcium, magnesium and others), essence and other substances.
The fruits are used in a fresh form and also in the form of dried fruits; They are suitable also for various processing: juices, stewed fruit, kissels and fruit wine, cider, jam preparations and thanks to the pectin content — jams, jelly and mousse. Apples are baked with sugar in dough; prepared as stuffing for pies, pastries and cakes and apple pies are very popular.
Dried apples are a good source of digestible sugars (contains from 8 to 15%), micro elements (up to 0.5% of various mineral salts) and approximately the daily norms of iodine salt is found in the seeds of one average fruit.
For example, the Antonovka apple variety (a variety of winter apple) contains the following in 100 gm at calorie value 48kcal: 0.3 gm of proteins, 11.5 gm of carbohydrates, 0.02 mg of vitamin B1, 4.9 mg of vitamin C, 16 mg of calcium and 86 mg of potassium.
Basically, fruits of wild varieties are processed.
Interesting facts:
The widespread opinion exists that apples help in waking up early in the morning better than coffee; however, information on scientific research in regards to this is not available.
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Yesterday was "Johnny Appleseed Day" in the United States. Johnny Appleseed was a real person and was among the settlers. As he moved across the country he planted apple trees along the way and sold the trees to settlers. These days, most apple trees across the United States are the descendants of the first apple trees Johnny Appleseed once planted.
