Announcing The ‘Beefing’ Apples Story, Part One
So, here’s the thing. For the past three or four years, on and off during my spare time, I’ve been researching and writing about a small group of apple varieties – the ‘Beefing’ apples – and the dried, pressed, baked apple sweetmeats called Biffins that they were traditionally made into.
I’ve already posted the Norfolk Biffin Story1Although I’m now in the process of re-working, re-formatting and re-publishing it to take into account additional information that I’ve come across since first writing it up. and now, finally, I’ve begun posting the ‘Beefing’ Apples Story as well.
To be honest it’s a bit of an epic, so I’ve decided to post each chapter in the story as and when it’s ready, rather than waiting to finish writing the whole series and then info-dumping everything in one go. Hopefully this will make the whole thing a little more reader-friendly and more easily digestible.
The first installment is a bit of a bumper one to get the ball rolling, and the following pages are now live here on Orchard Notes:
Norfolk Biffins and ‘Beefing’ Apples – an overall introduction to the project, details of the story so far, and a bit of a reading guide for the double-series of articles.
The ‘Beefing’ Apples Story – An introduction to this particular series, in which I talk about my interest in Biffins and ‘Beefing’ apples, and lay out my plan for the series; how I’m approaching the subject, which key questions I’m attempting to answer, that sort of thing.
Chapter One: The ‘Beefing’ Apples Story, 1900 – Today – In which I take a look at the currently available ‘Beefing’ apples, and examine the available source material from the period, on the hunt for both name-variants and clues to these apples’ origin stories.
I’ve also set up the main Table of Contents page, which I’ll be adding more links to as subsequent chapters go live, and the series Bibliography, which I’ll also be adding to as I go.
There’s plenty more to come in the next few weeks and months, starting with Chapter Two: The ‘Beefing’ Apples Story, 1850 – 1899, which I’m hoping to have ready to go in a couple of weeks, and then three back-story-rich, late C19th sub-chapters to follow.
I’ve had an immense amount of fun researching, writing, editing, re-researching, re-writing and re-editing the ‘Beefing’ Apples story, and I do hope you’ll find it interesting, in places entertaining, and maybe even a little bit fascinating. I know I’ve become fascinated with these fine old apples2Some might say a little too fascinated… and I hope some of that fascination might just rub off on you too.
Who knows, maybe you’ll be bitten by the ‘Beefing’ bug and feel the urge to plant a few of these fine old apple varieties, maybe cook, eat and enjoy their fruits, maybe even make yourself a batch of biffins. That would be lovely indeed.
If you do read and enjoy any of the chapters I’ve posted today, or one of the future chapters as and when they go live, do please feel free to leave a comment on the chapter in question, or to drop me an email to let me know. I’d love to hear from you, either way.
