Hello and welcome to the twin stories of the Norfolk Biffin – a baked, pressed, dried apple sweetmeat that was hugely around the Victorian era – and the ‘Beefing’ apples – ‘Norfolk Beefing’, ‘Striped Beefing’ and ‘Herefordshire Beefing’ – that were the traditionally grown and recommended apple varieties for slow-baking into biffins.
This page offers a general introduction to a double-series of articles: The Norfolk Biffin Story1This is the original, blog post version of the article, which I’m currently (as of summer 2024) re-working into the same format as the ‘Beefing’ Apples series. Links will be updated in due course. and The ‘Beefing’ Apples Story. Together they present a book’s worth of long-read material, but they can also be read independently of one another, or in smaller, topic-focused sections, as your interest takes you.
Please see the main Norfolk Biffins and ‘Beefing’ Apples – Table of Contents page for links to individual chapters, if you’d like to explore particular aspects of the history of Biffins and ‘Beefing’ apples. Or read on, to learn how I became involved in researching the history of Norfolk Biffins and ‘Beefing’ apples in the first place.
The Story So Far…
These two series have been quite a long time in the making. I’ve devoted countless hours of spare time to the project, and have enjoyed the process of researching and writing about Norfolk Biffins and ‘Beefing’ apples immensely, but I have to confess: the fascination that I’ve developed for all things ‘Beefing’ and Biffin started pretty much by accident.
In January 2020, I bought a pair of ‘Norfolk Beefing’ apples from our local organic deli, and wrote a blog post about my ‘Norfolk Beefing / Biffin Dilemma‘: could I justify leaving the oven on all night to try to bake these two apples into the dried and pressed apple sweetmeat called a “Norfolk Biffin”2Spoiler: I couldn’t justify it at the time, but since then I have been able to source enough ‘Norfolk Beefing’ apples – and have had solar panels installed at home, which definitely helped with the energy requirement dilemma – to attempt to make a batch of Norfolk Biffins! Second spoiler: they didn’t quite work out how I’d hoped they would, but I definitely plan to have another go as soon as I have another batch of suitable apples to hand.?
In February 2021, I ended up taking a deep-dive3At least, I thought it was a deep-dive, until I set about re-researching everything in order to properly tell the ‘Beefing’ apples story… into the pomological history books, as I set out ‘On the Trail of the Hereford Beefing‘. This was my attempt to find out if whether this particular ‘Beefing’ apple was related to – or perhaps even synonymous with? – the better-known ‘Norfolk Beefing’.4A lot of the research and conclusions I arrived at in that article have since been adjusted and updated to take into account the masses of new and additional information that I’ve come across in the course of my subsequent research, but it’s still a half-decent stab at the subject, if I do say so myself.
In April 2021 I posted The Norfolk Biffin, A History, Part I – Biffin Desserts, in which I sought to uncover the origins of these dried, pressed apple sweetmeats. I discussed the biffin’s rise in popularity, its eventual fall into obscurity, and talked about modern attempts to recreate and revive this traditional fruity favourite.5It was great fun to research and write, but could have been structured a little differently, so I’m in the process of re-working the original blog post into a series of shorter articles at the moment. This paragraph will be updated as and when that piece of work is complete.
When I posted that article I optimistically thought it would be a few weeks before part two, on the history of the various ‘Beefing’ apple varieties, was ready to go live. However, real life intervened 6Once allotment season is in full swing it’s hard to justify hours of research time when I need to be sowing, pricking out, potting on, planting, watering weeding and harvesting…, and when I eventually sat back down to review my notes a few months later, I thought I’d better re-check some of the sources and searches that I’d used for my earlier pieces, just in case I’d missed a pertinent detail or two.
Of course, when I started following up fresh leads, it turned out that I’d missed… well, quite a lot. In fact, there was an absolute wealth of relevant information that I hadn’t managed to uncover the first time around. New online searches turned up links to previously undiscovered source materials. Emails to experts in various fields suggested new leads to follow. Queries to archives unearthed documents containing new gems of detail. All of which resulted in more and more information to read, process and add to the story.
Which is why it’s only now – around three and a half years later than originally planned – that I’m finally ready and able to start telling the story of the ‘Beefing’ apple varieties. And what a story it is!
Reading Guide for the Norfolk Biffin and ‘Beefing’ Apples Stories
The huge volume of information that I’ve uncovered on the subject of these fine old apples has resulted in a lot of content, probably a decent-sized book’s worth7If any non-fiction publishers are reading and are potentially interested in publishing a print or ebook edition, please do drop me a line, I’d love to hear from you.. In order to keep it reasonable for online consumption, I’ve broken the narrative down into what should hopefully be nicely digestible chunks, many of which – at time of writing this intro – I’m still editing. My plan is to post each chapter as and when it’s ready to go live, rather than wait for everything to be finished.
In each of the main chapters I aim to carry the story along at a reasonably brisk pace, splitting off into sub-chapters of more detailed information as and when the story becomes particularly involved, or if there’s a side-story or a chunk of additional information that’s just too good to omit, but perhaps isn’t one hundred percent relevant to the main thread.
A few appendices will be added as well, which will contain a lot of the additional data and source material that I’ve uncovered, in case anyone ends up becoming as fascinated by the minutiae of these apples and apple sweetmeats as I have.
As and when new chapters or Appendices do go live, I’ll update the main Table of Contents page with live links, and will put out a quick announcement post via the blog section of Orchard Notes as well.
If you’d like to be notified by email every time a new chapter – and all other blog content on Orchard Notes – does go live, please sign up to my email list, and you’ll receive an automated update email, no more than once a week, whenever new content is available to read on the site.
I think that’s enough preamble. Perhaps you’d like to get on with the actual story of Norfolk Biffins and ‘Beefing’ Apples’. In which case, the aforementioned Table of Contents page can be used as a jumping-off point to dip into whichever sections of the story sound the most interesting.
Or of course you can simply start at the beginning of The Norfolk Biffin Story and/or The ‘Beefing’ Apples Story and steadily work your way through the whole series at your own pace. I would suggest reading the main chapter for each historical period before diving into any sub-sections though, as the latter will probably make a lot more sense when placed in context.
Comments, Questions, Suggestions?
If you have any feedback or queries about any of the content in these articles, please feel free to get in touch by one of these two methods:
- Post a Comment: each chapter has its own comments section, and the comment form can be found by scrolling to the bottom of the page. I do check and reply to comments fairly regularly, and all feedback is much appreciated.
- Send an Email: details are on the contact info page of the site. I usually check and respond to emails at the weekend, so please accept my apologies if there’s a delay in replying.
Footnotes
- 1This is the original, blog post version of the article, which I’m currently (as of summer 2024) re-working into the same format as the ‘Beefing’ Apples series. Links will be updated in due course. ↩︎
- 2Spoiler: I couldn’t justify it at the time, but since then I have been able to source enough ‘Norfolk Beefing’ apples – and have had solar panels installed at home, which definitely helped with the energy requirement dilemma – to attempt to make a batch of Norfolk Biffins! Second spoiler: they didn’t quite work out how I’d hoped they would, but I definitely plan to have another go as soon as I have another batch of suitable apples to hand. ↩︎
- 3At least, I thought it was a deep-dive, until I set about re-researching everything in order to properly tell the ‘Beefing’ apples story… ↩︎
- 4A lot of the research and conclusions I arrived at in that article have since been adjusted and updated to take into account the masses of new and additional information that I’ve come across in the course of my subsequent research, but it’s still a half-decent stab at the subject, if I do say so myself. ↩︎
- 5It was great fun to research and write, but could have been structured a little differently, so I’m in the process of re-working the original blog post into a series of shorter articles at the moment. This paragraph will be updated as and when that piece of work is complete. ↩︎
- 6Once allotment season is in full swing it’s hard to justify hours of research time when I need to be sowing, pricking out, potting on, planting, watering weeding and harvesting… ↩︎
- 7If any non-fiction publishers are reading and are potentially interested in publishing a print or ebook edition, please do drop me a line, I’d love to hear from you. ↩︎