#584 Bobbing topics
Fun Fact #584
Bobbing topics
Ah apples with Honeycrisp being my favorite food of all time, how can you not go wrong with apples?
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Oh, apparently you CAN run afoul of apples. You see until relatively recently (1820s thanks to the efforts of John Chapman in the US who is better remembered as Johnny Appleseed today) the word "Apple" served in place of the modern word "Fruit" except for berries. It was also more broad in what it could be applied to including nuts and galls (galls are a type of abnormal growth in plants similar to how tumors and warts are in animals). Which is why some words used it more as a suffix such as: Tomatos (Love-Apples), Cucumbers (old English: eorþæppla which translates to earth apples), Potatos were also called Earth apples at first, oranges (At first "Chieneese apples" then it became "Golden Apples" before the Dutch House of Orange became famous for shipping them to Europe which is how they came to their modern name), and Datura (the poisinous members of the Nightshade family known as "Thorn Apples" or "Mad-Apples").
All of which means that the Roman tradition of bobbing for fruit floating in a barrel makes much more sense in hindsight. You see nuts which have not been infested or rotting float when placed in water meaning having a barrel or large bowl filled with water and nuts ensure a good quality for patrons at feasts, with some cultures later adding larger fruits in order for it to be more difficult to play the game of Bobbing.
The actual "Game" of bobbing for apples actually comes from the Roman goddess of Pomona whose celebration on August 12th included people bobbing to predict their fortunes in farming for the coming year. The bigger and nicer the apple, the better the harvest. As more fruits were added more rules were applied such as if someone used the stem of a plant to fish out an apple then they would curse their harvest for the coming year and bless their worst enemy with the yield they would have won if the apple had been fairly won. Yet as time wore on this practice began to bleed over into other holidays being a fun game for feasts which didn't really require anything extra --even if it wasn't used for divination at other holidays. Today Bobbing for apples is still a fan favorite at Halloween --even if the term apple has been greatly consolidated in use.
Bonus Fun Fact! While the Apple pie did exist before it made landfall in the US, it was --like the word-- kind of a catchall for anything called apples, until John Chapman's appletree nurseries grew up. Due to the abundance of the same type of apples all along the east coast and Appalachian mountains most people who made Apple pies used just John's apples making the first (if unoffical) standard for the term Apple Pies in the world. When foreigners -Particularly explorers and dignitaries-- realized this they took the definition (and often some seeds) home with them helping to solidify the word apples to just the fruit we know of today. Lastly while its unknown where in the Rockford area, we do know he planted an apple orchards near the natural ford of the Rock river which became the town Midway --modern Rockford IL! Admittedly I think this is kind of cool.
