The Appeal of Mrs Toogood

I was recently off work for two weeks and invested that time in a thrilling series of medical investigations. Even more exciting than the seven thirty am blood tests was a late night romp to my local Tesco Extra in search of brandname grub for me and the cat.

Once there, I drifted hopelessly around the fruit and veg section pretending I didn’t live on Super Noodles and Ready Meals. There amongst the brightly coloured healthy things a surprise awaited me. Blimey. Tesco now sell heritage apples.

You can tell they’re heritage apples because the wrapper says so. Either they’re planning on rotating the actual stock and don’t want to spend money on changing the packaging when they do so or they think the names are silly, I know not which. But there they are. Resplendent in their golden-green suede overcoats, a half dozen Egremont Russets for two quid.

Now, the Egremont Russet is very much the gateway drug of the heritage apple market, not requiring anything like the hardened apple sensibilities of a Fearn’s Pippin or Potts’ Seedling (despite the latter having garnered the approval of H. Rider Haggard no less). It hasn’t always been able to displace the mundane tide of Braeburns and Pink Ladies in the affections of the common folk, but it has maintained a healthy underground following for years now. Crucially for commercial success, it’s a heavy cropper and is resistant to almost all apple diseases, including scab, mildew and the dastardly canker. It tastes nice too. Sharp and sweet. The environmentally despicable single use plastic packaging informed me that these specimens were produced not in Somerset where they might have been initially raised way back in 1872, but in Kent. I can’t get too upset about that. The south of England is basically all the same. It makes no difference which part of the stockbroker belt they used to grow their trees. If they were Lincolnshire apples grown in Rutland or Cambridgeshire, that would be a different matter.

The tide is turning my friends. Soon, Red Delicious and Gala will be forgotten atrocities and your supermarkets will be packed with Nonesuch, Toogoods and Pitmaster Russet Nonpareils.

Good news for us out of touch bloggers. Unless of course we happen to quite like being out of touch.

Anyway, I was so impressed that I decided to write to Tesco HQ to big them up. I reproduce the letter in its entirety below. I imagine they’ve passed it on to one of their head fruit honchos to consider their response.

“Dear Tesco,

I visited Lincoln Wragby Road Tesco Extra this week and would like to offer some positive feedback on the selection of goods available in store. As an inveterate leftie riddled with social awkwardness, I’m normally opposed to massive businesses but I love your late night crowd-free opening times and vast range of Buy One Get One Free offers on products I didn’t know I wanted.

As well as a miserable loner, I’m also an established blogger (lincolnshireapples.home.blog) with a readership of nearly ten close family members and sympathetic friends. I write exclusively about heritage apples and my stock in trade is feigned outrage at the anaemic varieties normally favoured by supermarkets. However, I noticed on my last trip that you have started selling Egremont Russets, packaged as Heritage Apples. I bought a packet pronto and have not regretted it.

It’s possible that you’ve been selling them for years and I just haven’t noticed but, whatever the truth, thanks for supporting the continued existence of beautiful British heritage fruit. If you ever decide to branch out further, please feel free to ask about the pathetically inadequate supply of Lincolnshire varieties I grow in my orchard near Louth, each one less pleasant than the last.

Yours,

Mike Fowler

Owner-Operator, Ticklepenny Orchard, Lincolnshire”

Now there’s a chance I could make millions from my trees, I thought I’d better head off home to check on them. The traditional bus journey confirmed that I am now so inured to the beauty of the Lincolnshire countryside that I can read a book all the way to Louth, oblivious to the passing rural idyll. This time the book in question was Berlin Noir by Phillip Kerr. Bernie Gunther investigating heinous Nazi plots in post war Germany. Fantastic stuff.

I looked up once between chapters to find that we were on the backroad diversion to South Willingham. The sky was blue, the fields were brown (they’re dirt, not grass) and we were stuck in a passing place waiting for a tractor to slowly approach and pass us. I could’ve nipped out and bought a bag of ‘tates from a nearby house whilst we were idling but unfortunately rural honesty boxes don’t take credit cards. Beyond that minor inconvenience, all was very much right with the world.

The next time I looked up, we were steaming past the River Lud and the extensive gardens of Mrs West’s house on St. Mary’s Lane in Louth. When I was a scrawny nipper, me and my friend Martin Dale used to paddle tractor inner tubes along the river here to go poaching in the trout farm next door. Obviously, that was before I discovered Dungeons and Dragons and stopped going outside. It was only my consuming desire to be a level 4 Wizard that stopped me embarking on a life of crime. I’m still not sure which course my parents approved of least.

Seconds later we passed the church and turned left into Mercer Row and its collection of butchers ancient and modern. Louth’s main street is narrow, and progress was slow due to the abundance of Jags with disabled parking permits littering the scenery. I watched the assembled locals as we stuttered by, wondering if I went to school with any of them. I doubt they’d remember me even if I did. I was entirely bland as a child. Now at least I am distinguished by my blossoming waistline and colossal spectacles.

Anyway, the purpose of this impromptu venture was to check on my trees. It turns out they’re fine. And, err, that’s about it. You should probably have stopped reading after the Tesco bit. I can only apologise.