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Life has been very pleasant this week at Towfi Towers. The weather has been fine enough lately for us to indulge in our passion for picnics so, when a guest suggested a trip to the wine country, we were off like a prom dress. Later that day, as we sat in the shade of a live-oak, digesting our epicurean delights, we fell to discussing the oak-apples which littered the ground. The fruit of the oak is, of course, the acorn so what is an oak-apple? It is the size of an apple but it is the oak's reaction to having wasp eggs laid in its twigs and not a fruit at all. There are
many more "apples" which don't grow on apple trees. Logically, a
pineapple should be a The botanical name for the tomato plant is Lycopersicum esculentum which means "edible wolf-peach" but the tomato fruit was once called the love-apple, translating either the French pomme d’amour or German liebesapfel. This name may well have contributed to this vegetable's initial unpopularity. The apple of love or love-apple was a common term for the fruit of Genesis which, according to Milton, "brought death into the world, and all our woe" (Paradise Lost). Legend has it that one bite of this fruit lodged in Adam's throat. This may not be the true origin of the larger male larynx but that's why its called an Adam's apple. The other body part associated with apples is the "apple of the eye". While this usually occurs in a metaphorical context such as "she is the apple of his eye" it literally refers to the pupil of the eye. It is so called because it was once supposed to be a solid, spherical body.
In our research this week, we read of a Polynesian fruit called the Otaheite apple (Spondias dulcis), named after Otaheite, which we usually refer to as Tahiti. This is what the book said: "...it is of a golden yellow colour, the rind having a taste like turpentine, and the pulp the flavor of pine-apple". In that case, if you ever come across one we suggest you eat the pulp, not the rind. |
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Last Updated 05/02/02 10:04 PM