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Priyanka Kumar, "Light Between Apple Trees: Rediscovering the Wild Through a Beloved American Fruit" (Island Press, 2025)
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- [00:01]
A
Welcome to the New Books Network.
- [00:05]
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I'm Caleb Zakrin, CEO and publisher of the New Books Network. Today I'm speaking with naturalist Priyanka Kumar about her recently published book, the Light Between Apple Rediscovering the Wild Through a Beloved American Fruit. Priyanka is also a filmmaker, having taught at UC Santa Cruz and usc, and serves on the Advisory Council of the Leopold Writing Program. For many, the apple is the most iconic fruit. Many of us were raised hearing the slogan, an apple a day keeps the doctor away. For us, we heard the lore of Johnny Appleseed who went across America planting orchards. Sadly, as many of us have also experienced, the apples we find in grocery stores today are not as tasty as we once remembered. They're often mushy, tasteless, with cardboard skin. Priyanka Kumar investigates the humble apple and wonders about what it tells us about nature, the wild, and civilization more broadly. This is Priyanka's second time appearing on the New Books Network to speak about this book. We wanted to have her on again for the Princeton University Press Ideas podcast to dive further into the meaning and significance of this most iconic of fruits. Priyanka, thanks for joining me today on the New Books Network.
- [01:14]
A
Thank you, Caleb. It's my pleasure.
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B
Thank you so much for being on. This book really is a joy to read in many ways because of the introspective nature, the way that you are able to weave in both your own personal narrative and experience investigating the apple, and also the way that you explore the history of the apple, the history of fruit more broadly, the concept of nature, the concept of the wild. It really is one of these books where each chapter you are really digging into a different aspect of the apple. And of course I, you know, I feel in many ways like I've thought about an interface with apples for, for my entire life. For some reason, it seems to have this. This weird hold on children as like this miracle fruit. But there's also this aspect of it that's quite disappointing that I think you dig into, where as much as we like to imagine it as being this incredible, delicious thing, it's also, we also oftentimes find ourselves disappointed by it when we actually eat one. And before talking about the book and talking about apples, I was wondering if you just introduce yourself a little bit, tell our listeners about yourself.
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A
I had the good fortune of growing up in the foothills of the Himalayas. This is where I spent the most important part of my childhood, both in the eastern and the western foothills and when we were in the eastern foothills. And these are among some of the most biodiverse places on the planet among, you know, the top 20 biodiversity hotspots. And I was also right in the. The heart of the apple growing region in the Himalayan foothills. So I have memories as a two year old of weaving among these mother apple trees. And I saw them as these beings who towered over me. And it's interesting that you mentioned that kids often feel like apples have a hold on them. And I feel like apples have exerted a powerful pull on me throughout my life. And finally I got to a point where I felt I need to figure this out, not just for myself, but also for people at large. I mean, why. Why are apples such a powerful fruit? What's the draw?
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B
Yeah, you talk about this, this bear that you are tracking where you live now in New Mexico. And it is sort of interesting to think about the fruits or the foods that we eat that animals also eat, because there's so many foods that we eat today that animals, unless they are scavenging through our trash, you know, will never taste. And, you know, maybe that says something about the food, maybe that says something about. About us. But, you know, how do you think about fruits and apples in terms of the animals that consume them? How does this make you think about them and what you are, you know, sort of thinking about and going after?
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A
Yeah, I mean, I think doing a deep dive into the science of the mutualism between animals and fruit makes you completely rethink that relationship. So the apple, of course, belongs to the apple tree, belongs to the rose family. And we know that the primal flowering rose appeared on earth something like 80 million years back. So about 40 million years back, these plants start to develop a little bit more prominent fruits to attract avian predators. So birds, such as magpies, became interested in these fruits. And of course, it was a symbiotic relationship where the birds were spreading the fruit. And then what happens? Around 20 million years back, the fruit gets even bigger to attract megafaunal mammals like bears. And of course, these bears are, you know, love this. Everyone, from the youngest bears to the oldest one, love these juicy fruits and start spreading them, you know, even wider. So thinking about the science and the history of it, when I stumbled upon feral apple trees at the outskirts of Santa Fe, I really began to think about how key these relationships have been in deep time and how easily we forget that. And I started to think about the apple tree as a tree that's sustaining not just kids and the rest of us, but also that's primally important for an animal like the bear, and especially in the Southwest, where we're in a mega drought, and, you know, some of the more common food sources of the bear, like acorns, are supposed to decline in the years to come. So these feral apple trees become even more important to sustain these bears. And it really made me think about how not just the forest, but the edges of the forest could also be biodiversity havens that are sustaining everyone from the chipmunk to the hummingbird to the bear to myself. So it just gave me a much more meta appreciation of these areas that I then developed the concept of the microwild and began to refer to them as the microwild.
- [06:47]
B
Yeah. The book is structured around months, and as you follow each chapter, the chapters are relatively short, and they'll weave in a sort of a personal narrative with a scientific or sort of historical investigation related to the apple in some way. And I was wondering if you talk a little bit about the structure of the book, how you came upon this structure, Because I find it to be very. A very effective approach, I think, especially for, you know, for scholarly books. Sometimes it's a little bit more cut and dry, but this one really reads in a way that is a bit more engaging, more engrossing. What was the way that you stumbled on this particular format?
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A
Yeah, that's such a great question. You know, my writing tends to be both analytical and intuitive, but it's primarily intuitive. And I started to write the book to investigate this question of why the apple has this powerful draw, not just on me, but on us as humans. And I really wanted it to be a journey that I could take readers on. And I experienced such deep joy, which I sometimes refer to as rasa. That's a Sanskrit term which suggests the essence of an experience. So I experienced such deep joy in these historic orchards and, you know, these micro wilds where I stumbled upon feral apple trees that I really wanted to be able to take the reader to on a visceral, sensory journey. I wanted you to be right there with me. And I think that I didn't originally plan to structure it by months, but after I wrote the book, that structure suddenly became visible to me, after it was all written and edited, actually. And then I suddenly saw that intuitively had been structured in that way, and I went and made that a little bit more visible. And I think it's so important today to. When we're talking about writing that has to do with the natural world or conservation or where we're wanting to see wildlife as our kin, it's so important that we don't get stuck in this mode where elites are speaking to elites, but we are able to write in a way that's satisfying to people who read a lot of nature writing, but it's also accessible to the public at large. And that was very important to me because I think that unless public consciousness about some of these issues changes, I don't think we can really make much headway in terms of conserving some of these very vulnerable spaces that I write about.
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B
Yeah, yeah. There are obviously lots of discussions in this book about the types of environments that apples grow in. And you talk about how once apples arrived in the Americas, there was sort of a Cambrian explosion, in a way, of varieties, all sorts of different types of apples in different areas. And now, of course, you know, there are very few varieties of apples. I think you mentioned in the book that there were 16,000 varieties. And now I don't know the exact number, but it's far fewer, at least. I think I maybe know, you know, maybe eight different varieties of apples. And I think everyone has had that experience of going to the grocery store thinking, oh, I should, you know, I should stop eating processed foods as much. Let me go get some fruit, buy an apple. They take it home, they eat the apple, at it. They're extremely disappointed by the taste and flavor. And sometimes when I had this experience, I wonder, is my palate just kind of messed up by eating so many processed foods, or is there something truly wrong with these apples that we're buying in the grocery store?
- [11:17]
A
Well, they're lab apples. That's what I call them. And I suppose there are reasons why they exist. But what. As an apple enthusiast, what I really love to do is go wandering not just in these feral groves, but also in historic orchards or in other smaller organic orchards. And the orchardists are so grateful when you show up. And, you know, some of the apple varieties. For instance, an apple that's commonly grown in orchards here in New Mexico is the Jonathan, which is like this red apple that has been called the essence of the American apple. And orchardists will tell you that it's just the best. And I completely agree. They're rarer varieties that are wonderful for a connoisseur. Someone like Jefferson, for instance, loved the toliver apple, which is now actually extinct, and he compared it to a silky champagne. The taste and the feel of the apple. So. So, no, I would say that there's nothing wrong with your palate. A lot of these lab apples are engineered to be kind of juicy in A way that's almost cloying and extremely sweet. And what I like about the apples that I find in all the different orchards and wild areas that I go to is that they have these complex flavors. And, you know, you bite into an apple that has, like, a strange, almost like a spicy, sweet taste, and there's hints of cinnamon or clove. And, you know, I once bit into an apple in a historic orchard near. Where. Near Rayado and Cimarron in northern New Mexico. And it looked like. It looked like the skin of a tiger. It was all striped. And. And I was eating this apple, and then I was able to see the cabin of people who had been living there 200 years back. And I was kind of thinking, wow, you know, were they also. Because it was a historic tree, were they also eating the same apple? And just like, I was completely wowed by. By the spice in this apple. It was unbelievable. So it's. It's a palette expand to go adventuring around in these orchards. And unfortunately, we've gotten stuck as a society in this. We're in, like, the death grip of 10 lab apples. And, yes, so there were 16,000 named apple varieties in America at one point, and only about a fifth of those are now accessible to us. But the reality is that most of us encounter maybe five to 10 varieties at best, in a grocery store. So I think it's really time. This is almost. This is a great metaphor for how we're kind of living in spaces and worlds that are smaller and more homogenized than ever before. So this is a great first step to take to break out of those 10 lab apples. And someone who read the book, who's also the head of the Western National Parks association, recently told me that she was inspired to start keeping an apple journal. So she's now going beyond the grocery stores, and every time she finds a new apple, she makes a quick sketch of it and writes a couple of sentences about how it tasted and felt. And it's been such a transformative, Transformative experience for her. And I was just delighted to hear that.
- [15:39]
B
Yeah. In many ways, one would almost like to imagine that there would be. And it does seem like there are people that think about orchards this way. But it would be nice if people treated apples the same way that they treated grape varieties, where there really was this sense. Maybe the cider, popularity of cider will lead that because alcohol can be sold at such a high premium. I think part of the, you know, the tragedy of apples probably does relate to the fact that if you can mass produce them, then you can, you know, and the margins are, are so thin, then, then you can basically skimp on quality, which has led to, you know, these kind of bad, tasteless apples. You even talk about how the disappointment at certain organic apples, apples that are being sold at as quality, still not necessarily having that, that, that delicious flavor that we would hope to get. Like, why are even the organic apples that are sold disappointing?
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Yeah, that's a great question. And that's because they're traveling so far to get to us. I mean, we have organic apples in Santa Fe that are coming from B.C. from British Columbia. And it doesn't make any sense for people living here in Santa Fe to be buying apples from British Columbia when we have this thriving community of apple orchardists all across the state. We've been growing apples in the state for something like 400 years, from the time of the Spanish Conquistadores. So, you know, it's such a heart opening experience to go to these orchards and engage with these orchardists. And they're so happy to tell you the story of apples like Rome Beauty or Maiden's Blush. And a lot of these apples are coming from trees that are in some cases 80 or even 100 years old. And so I don't get it. I get it in the sense that it's very convenient to run over to a natural grocer's or Whole Foods and pick up apples that come from British Columbia. But I think that if we're really thinking about root in its most elemental sense, and if we're wanting to connect to that, if we're wanting to live our lives in ways that feel refreshing, if we're looking for exhilarating moments, then I think all of those might be good enough reasons to steer clear of lab apples. And, and really, you know, sometimes what I do is I'm just off for a hike somewhere and on my way back I try to stop at an orchard and the orchardists. I'm not kidding. You are so grateful to interact with people who know even just a little bit about apple varieties. And it's interesting how we as a country can sometimes move toward that one apple. And it's, in our case, it's of course been the Red Delicious. And I think I mentioned in the book that it was when the wizard of Oz came out that Americans became smitten with these bright red apples. And this happened all across the country, even in New Mexico. Just a couple of, a couple of weekends back, I was in this very old orchard that was along the banks of the Rio Grande river. It was a gorgeous spot. And of course, when I got to the orchard and I was going to help prune some of the trees, I asked about the variety, and these were all. Every single tree was a red Delicious. And they had all been planted, I think, sometime in the late 40s or so. So we seem to have this propensity to move toward that one apple. And part of what I'm doing in the book is I'm trying to get people excited about this amazing diversity of apples. And, you know, you're right. When the settlers came here, America became, in a sense, a laboratory for all of these different apple varieties. And people were planting apple trees from seeds that they brought with them even before they started to in any way put together their one room dwelling. So the first thing that they did is they planted those apple seeds, and it was amazing. The varieties and then the kind of cross pollination, in a sense, that people were constantly connecting with each other about these apples and, you know, giving science to each other to graft these amazing new varieties that they were discovering. So we've moved so far away from that that it seems like this might be a good time to kind of get to know some of that science and history and consider the ways in which it might support our lives today.
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I first was exposed to the sort of the myth of Johnny Appleseed when I watched as a Kid, the 1948 Disney short film about Johnny Appleseed. And I was just transfixed by this sort of Paul Bunyanesque character that went across America planting apples, giving this gift of this delicious fruit that would keep people healthy and keep them well fed. Could you talk a little bit about the Johnny Appleseed myth, why it's so powerful and who the actual person was behind the myth?
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Yeah, It's a mesmerizing myth. And I discovered that now first graders are learning about Johnny Appleseed, at least here in New Mexico. It's like a big part of their curriculum. And there's. It's kind of interesting that they tried to deconstruct it and are asked questions like, you know, could it actually be true that his skin was so thick that snakes couldn't bite through it? And was he actually playing with bear cubs? I mean, I think there's certainly something to the historic character, right? I mean, there were reasons why he left the comfort and security of his family life. This is the, you know, his father married again, and there were a lot of siblings, and everyone was crammed into this little cabin, and he'd always Loved the outdoors. So at some point he just took off. And who can blame him? You know, there was literally no space for him inside this cabin. And so he took off. And he didn't believe in grafting, incidentally. And that was not unusual for the time because American farmers and orchardists from the get go were really suspicious of grafting. And they felt like to take the limb of one tree and glue it, attach it to the trunk of another, seemed to them almost like a devilish act, and they wanted to stay right away from. But of course, what happens is, for apple trees, that's the only way. Grafting is the only way you get the variety that you covet. If you're going to plant a seed, it's up for grabs what you're going to get. And in that time, in those early times of the settlers and also Johnny Appleseed, it didn't really matter if the apple was a spitter, because what were they using the apple for? Primarily. Primarily, they were drinking it. They were making cider both hard and soft, and in some cases, they were living under such brutal conditions that, you know, the hard cider was really a comfort for them. They were also, of course, using it for vinegar, which, you know, was an excellent preservative for they didn't have any fresh produce in the winter. And so. So essentially, early Americans were drinking the apple, so it didn't matter if these apples were spitters. So he was going around planting apple seeds, and then when the seedlings were just big enough, he would go and try to sell them. But more often than not, he was such a sweetheart, in a sense, that people didn't have any resources. He would just give it away. So he was a true evangelist. And then we take that person and then we build this, you know, huge national myth around him. He's. He's kind of like a prophet of sorts. I mean, in a sense, I see him almost as our first naturalist, because, you know, of course you have Thoreau, but you don't have the reach in Thoreau that the reach is there. It's the literary reach. But what I really love about Appleseed is that he's actually wanted. He's walking so much. Can you imagine the birds and the animals he saw along the way? And he's going down those rivers. It's unbelievable. So, you know, I'm not too bothered by the myth. I think it does us some good. At the same time, I try not to focus too much on him in the book because he already gets so much attention. And what I tried to do is to shine the light on Johnny Appleseeds that we've never heard of. And one of them is Archbishop Jean Baptiste Lamy, who was a French missionary who came to Ohio initially, and then he eventually moved to New Mexico, and he dreamed up up this beautiful Cathedral of Saint Francis of Assisi that is really the prime attraction Santa Fe. And his dream is immortalized in Villa Cather's classic Death Comes to the Archbishop. And he was a grapefruit evangelist, I would say. And he was bringing science back from, you know, train journeys that he took to all kinds of different parts of the country, different states, and bringing them back. And he was planting this garden so almost like a Garden of Eden, right around the cathedral. And from the accounts that I've read and the photographs that I've seen, I mean, my goodness. And he was selling all the fruit for charity. So talk about someone who was really, you know, really living a life that was quite admirable and sadly. And I think this says something for our times. Once he passed on, the garden was neglected. This Garden of Eden was neglected and eventually dried up and became a trash heap. And the archdiocese sold it to some hotel group. And, you know, it's mostly a parking lot now. So that also, I mean, the story is kind of tragic, but says something about the times, about how many lives he touched in his time through the gift of fruit. And then that was, you know, in the 20th century. Now, it wasn't nurtured. And I think it says something about where we're at in this moment of history and how we do or don't connect with nature.
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B
Yeah. Speaking of history, you spent some time at Monticello, which is Thomas Jefferson's the state. And Jefferson of the founding fathers is very much emblematic of the kind of the gentleman farmer and very much pushing this idea of America as a rural agricultural nation versus the more urban business, banking interests. And Jefferson's obviously quite a fraught figure in American history, but it was also very fascinating, had so many different interests, and one of them, which I really wasn't aware of to the extent, was his interest in fruit. Could you talk about what your experience was like at Monticello, what you learned and how that made you sort of think differently about Jefferson?
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A
Sure. And he's a fraud figure, all right. Because of course, his plantation and orchards and gardens were essentially being run by slave labor. And so it was an interesting time to be at Monticello doing this research as a fellow at the International center for Jefferson Studies that they have There kind of wrestling with all the issues connected to slave labor. And of course, you know, not just in his gardens, but also how it played out in his life. And taking that into account, but also taking into account the fact that he was very prescient about the natural world in many ways. I mean, he was one of the first people in the country who started to take down important phenological records. So it was as though he expected that, you know, climate was an important matter, and he was taking down records of, you know, weather and temperature, temperature that are important for us to look at today when the first ticks of the season were appearing and so on. So he's such an interesting figure in the ways that he was thinking about the natural world. He was growing something like 170 varieties in his orchards. And that's also quite fascinating. He, of course, spent some time in France, and every time he went there, though he was busy with the political work, he always made time to explore new fruit varieties. One of the varieties, and this isn't an apple, but the fig, he became obsessed with the Marseille fig, and he brought it back to Monticello, and, you know, it's still growing there today. And I was there and tasting this fig straight from, you know, just harvesting it and eating it right away and just marveling at the fact that he could somehow figure out that this fig would thrive in Monticello. And again, he was growing apple. He was growing the Hughes crab, primarily for cider. And within, you know, the slave labor that he had, there were very. He was really particular about cider. And there were very specific people. There was a woman by the name of Ursula, whom he. That was the only person essentially, that he trusted to make his animals cider. And, you know, these are gallons and gallons of cider. So he was growing these huge crabs. And very recently, I think, in the last 10 years or so, a local orchard in Charlottesville began to look more closely at this fruit and decided to distill some cider. And lo and behold, they realized that Jefferson was right and their cider actually won the Governor's Cup. So there are many ways in which he was thinking about fruit and nature that have resonance today. So I think that even though Jefferson is a problematic figure in the ways that we mention, you can't really write a book about fruit. You can't think about fruit in America and ignore his contribution because he was constantly writing and corresponding with people, not just. Just in this country, but everywhere else, about fruit. I mean, he'd be sending off a missive about some war that was occurring. And then he'd say, oh, and by the way, this is to a correspondent in France, you know, I'm going to include a box of scions for you and try this out in your garden. So it's very interesting to me that there were these fruit friendships among the founding fathers. There's of course, George Washington was also growing a lot of fruit. I mean, the, the one that I most feel. Feel most comfortable thinking about is of course, John. John Adams. Because he, he never owned any slaves. He was actually viscerally engaged in his garden, both he and his wife Abigail. It's such a beautiful love story. And they loved cider. John Adams had this habit where he couldn't begin his day without a jill of cider. And so not only did they want to distill their own cider, but they wanted to grow their own apple trees to make the cider from. And John had this dream where, you know, he wanted to grow apple trees that would be so bountiful that his own grandchildren would one day harvest from those trees. And I find it profoundly moving to think about that dream of wonder what our lives would be like if we had similar dreams. So that was a strong. His connection. John Adams's connection to apple trees was certainly a strong, strong inspiration for me as I worked over the course of several years on this book.
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B
I think so much what it connects with is this relationship that people still do have. Obviously you go and you, you speak with people that run orchards today that have this almost deep, intimate relationship with the trees that they farm. And you know, of course we have this almost dichotomy between civilization and nature where the forces of civilization produce these industrial farms that will grow one single crop at an enormously efficient scale. Obviously there's a sacrifice that comes along with that. You know, we have fewer varieties of. Of fruits and apples as a result, they're not necessarily as tasty or delicious. And they don't have that same sort of story which, you know, if anyone's gone wine tasting before, having someone tell you the story of the wine will really make it more delicious. I don't have the, maybe the palate that some of these sommeliers have, but certainly hearing the story of these varieties can really make something better. And you know, we have this dichotomy between civilization and nature. And then we also have. Have sort of two different words to describe nature. There's nature, which is almost this positive to neutral term, and then there's the wild, which is frightening and scary and when we think of the wild, sometimes we want to tame the wild. We want to bring it into control. And I think you're sort of suggesting, in a way, with your exploration of feral trees, that we shouldn't really fear the wild. Even these apples that might not necessarily be cultivated for our palates, that there's something very interesting about them when we explore them. And you have this concept in it, which you've mentioned, of the microwild. I was wondering if you could talk about the micro wild and how you see it as fitting into this broader dichotomy of civilization and nature and then nature and wild.
- [37:40]
A
So there's something radical that I would like to do with my work. You know, speaking of this dichotomy that you mentioned, I would like us to see the wild not with fear, but with almost a sense of being deeply attracted to the wild. I mean, I think that our lives have been tamed to the point where things can almost feel robotic sometimes, like we're walking around on autopilot half the time. And. And for us, I feel like it's not so much that, well, certainly it is time for us to save the wild, but I think that in a sense, it's the wild that will save us. And, you know, part of the reason I have that perspective is, of course, I grew up with the wild. I'm not suggesting that I was some kind of a guru Mowgli, but. But I really grew up in kinship with the wild, where I love to collect these snake skins, and they were my most treasured possessions, and I would stash them in a little cave where I would be sure that no one else could find them. And I learned not to be afraid of snakes. I learned to have a healthy respect for them. And so I learned to overcome my fear of wild in the first 10 years of my life. So I think that's helped me to see the wild in a different way. I see the wild as almost sacred, and I have great love for the wild, and I truly believe that the wild will save us. And yet a lot of us don't have access to the wild, whether it's because we're living in urban areas or, you know, you have young children or they're elderly people. So in this book, one of the concepts that I develop that I'm now working on further is the concept of the micro wild. These are essentially scraps or fragments of nature that are still large enough to sustain notable biodiversity in both plant and animal communities. So we're talking about the kinds of Places where I was stumbling upon these feral trees, where clearly these trees were supporting bears, but they were also supporting all kinds of riparian plants, they were supporting birds like hummingbirds, they were supporting chipmunks. So the diversity was magnificent. So you almost get a taste of the wild, so to speak. And I think these places are very important because they can give the average person access to the wild and they do exist somewhere around you. You just have to be adventurous enough to find them. But because they exist somewhere around you, they're also highly vulnerable to development pressures. So I think that this is a time when it's very important for us to discover the micro wilds around us and then cherish those micro wilds and figure out ways to, in some ways conserve them. Even as I was falling in love with microwilds, I was seeing new housing developments go up right on them, if not on the edges. So I really think that that's the way of the future. Unfortunately, I'm not part of the AI group. I really think that. I think technology offers us such a brilliant set of tools. At the same time, you know, I think we may be getting to a point where it's deadening us, our spirits, and I think the wild offers an antidote and the microwild is a way, a pathway into the wild, if that makes any sense.
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B
Yeah. Part of what's interesting about this concept of the micro wild is that it allows people to get a glimpse into how nature works. And I think one of the things that we oftentimes don't understand about how the world works more broadly, that nature can give us a window into, is the way in which things are connected in a chain of sorts. So if one fruit disappears or one animal disappears, it can completely affect the entire chain of life that is dependent on that. And this is an idea that you're exploring further in your next book, the Grassland Queen, looking at this sort of symbiotic relationship between birds and grasslands. And how has studying nature and studying the wild helped you understand these chains, these sort of second and third order effects, and the way in which various species are impacted when one seemingly innocuous plant is eradicated.
- [42:50]
A
As a naturalist, I've been studying ecosystems and plant and animal diversity for a very long time. And I had been fascinated with the grasslands ecosystem, especially for many reasons, not the least of which is this incredible bird, which is America's largest shorebird, called the long bill curlew. And it has this unbelievable, almost 8 inch long bill that looks like it should fall off, but it somehow stays on and I first discovered this bird when I was teaching at UC Santa Cruz in Northern California in the Elkhorn Slough. And I was completely mesmerized and I studied the bird there in its kind of watery ecosystem along California's coastline. And then once I moved to New Mexico, I began to study the bird in the grassland ecosystem. And one of the insights that I came away with, and this really became foundational for the forthcoming book and my work in general is that it's time to stop focusing on single bird species and think about birds as a community of birds. Because even though I personally was so mesmerized by the long billed curlew, what I began to discover is that the curlew is not exist. You know, the curlews come to the grasslands of the Great Plains in the summertime to breed, but they're of course not existing, you know, just by themselves. There's a whole community of not just birds, but other animals such as the prairie dogs who are creating and the bison who graze in ways that create the right conditions for ground dwelling birds such as the long bill curlew. So, you know, we can get too caught up in charismatic animals, but we sometimes fail to realize that those very animals are being sustained by an entire animal community. It's really, it truly is this web and the connections are what makes it all so fascinating and magical and that is what keeps the ecosystem going. So, you know, ranchers might decide that they don't like prairie dogs for some reason or the other and start poisoning them. And then guess what happens, you know, you have these beautiful migratory hawks, like the Swainson's hawks that of course eat the prairie dogs. So you have bald eagles that eat prairie dogs and other rodents. And so you're essentially poisoning your hawks. You're essentially taking away these prairie dogs are architects of the grassland ecosystems. You're taking the architect away and you're changing the vegetation structure of this ecosystem. So then you're impacting this gorgeous bird, the long billed curlew that I think we can all agree to love. So it's the connections that become so evident and I hope that I'm able to get that, that across. As much as I love the curlew and that's what initially got me to start doing this research, I think what I respect most of all at this point are the communities and communities where it's all at. Yeah, for sure.
- [46:42]
B
It's so interesting to think about these ecosystems and their levels of complexities. Even very small ecosystems really have, have this incredible complexity that when we start to pay attention to. It just changes how we think about how everything fits together. And I do think that, you know, obviously, as you highlight, you know, there, there are a lot more varieties than these five or ten grocery store varieties that we're used to. And I, I do feel like in many ways the apple can be an entry point into people to think about ecosystems. I feel oftentimes like to just come back to wine again. And people that get very into wine will get very fascinated with agriculture and with ecosystems. But of course, for the most part, at least the United States, that's blocked off to people 21 and older. But apples, of course, can be enjoyed by anyone of any age. So I do feel like making people interested in thinking about the different varieties of apples is a entry point for many people into thinking about ecosystems, into thinking about why it's important to preserve the diversity in our ecosystem. So do you have any recommendations or advice for people that, that want to eat apples or want to enjoy apples that aren't just the Red Delicious or the Granny Smith or, you know, the other ones that, that you're going to get at a, at, at a grocery store?
- [48:01]
A
Sure, certainly the Black Oxford, which is, I think, Maine's pride and joy. It's also a historic variety and it has an interesting, almost pistachio like taste to it. And it's a great keeper. I incidentally love apples that are great keepers. I mean, one of the oldest varieties in the country is the Newtown Pippin apple. It dates from the 1700s. And this is an apple that Jefferson was growing for sure. And you can always trust Benjamin Franklin to figure out how to make something of even a fruit. So he decided that we should export this apple to Britain. And his instincts were right on. And it was a big hit there. And Queen Victoria became a devotee. And of course, one reason this all worked out is because the Newtown Pippin is a real keeper. So in a time before refrigeration, it could survive that travel to England. And so this is a variety that I'm growing in my garden today. And it was wonderful to be able to harvest the Newtown Pippin in October and then just be able to slice one in March. It's such a wonderful keeper. So if you can grow the Newtown Pippin, you know, you're golden during the winter months. And then I'd like to point out an especially lovely apple, which is called a hidden rose. And I, you know, every single time I cut it open for kids because I really like to evangelize about apples with the New generation. You know, it never fails to elicit some gasps of delight because you cut open the apple and it's kind of pinkish red inside, and it's a little tart, but it's very delightful and visually appealing. And so, yeah, those are some of the apples that are my favorites at the moment. And certainly the Jonathan, which is easy to find. I think among orchardists, there are so many varieties. I feel like I'm constantly learning about new varieties, new tastes, and then, of course, inevitably, I cross paths with the supermarket apple, and I'm like, yikes. You know, there's so much more to apples than this. And you're right, apples can have a strange way of bringing us into the wild. Sometimes it's just a matter of observing a really old mother apple tree and seeing how a flicker has bored a hole into that tree and without actually, you know, not killing the tree, but the flicker bore so whole. And then seeing a whole community of little organisms and animals, you know, everything from especially all kinds of spiders that begin to use that as habitat. And just. I think you could just spend a whole day studying an apple tree, especially old mother apple tree. And. And you might find at some point signs of a bear having scratched the trunk or have some scat close by, and you could write a story of just an apple tree and all the animal life that it sustains. And I think what's so remarkable is on top of everything else, it manages to sustain our spirit as well when we reach up for that apple and take a bite. So I think it's a magical tree, and I still am entranced by it, even after spending so many years studying it.
- [52:10]
B
Yeah, thank you for those recommendations. I feel like I'm looking forward to the next farmer's market visit and going and getting some varieties, because I do feel in many ways like I only buy apples now if it's at a farmer's market, because I just find that if I buy them at the grocery store, it's that I just don't end up eating them. Maybe I'll have one and be a little disappointed by the taste, and then it just sort of sits there and decays, you know, while I eat chips. So it's definitely, you know, I think it's very exciting, and I do think it is an amazing thing that I would love to see just the, you know, the flowering of new varieties in the United States. You know, obviously apples aren't, you know, aren't native to the. To the. To America, but, you know, apples are everywhere, and they're you know, we've spent a lot of time focusing on and thinking about their significance in the United States, but they really do have this this globe spanning importance to so many different regions. And I think in your book, you're doing an excellent job of exploring the science of of apples, the the deep history of apples, the more recent history of them, and then just how they fit into this broadcast ecological story of the wild and our attempt to tame it, and maybe our need to go back into it as well. So, Priyanka, thank you so much for being guest again on the New Books Network. It was really wonderful to speak to you about your book and really look forward to having you on again to talk about the Grassland Queen.
- [53:38]
A
Thank you so much, Caleb. I really appreciate this. Sam.