Excellent fresh eating, great sauce and sharp cider apple. Alas, however, not a pie apple—turns to soup. The 1865 Department of Agriculture yearbook sums it up: “Flesh remarkably white, tender, juicy…deliciously pleasant, with a slight perfume… No orchard in the north can be counted as complete without this variety… It is just so good that everybody likes to eat of it; and when cooked, it is white, puffy, and delicious.”
Famous in Maine for well over 200 years. Medium-small roundish ruby-red thin-skinned fruit. Keeps until late December. As one of the few apples that comes relatively true-to-type from seed, occasional “variations on a Fameuse theme” can be found in old orchards. Thought to be a parent of McIntosh. Recent discoveries suggest that it could be one of the oldest varieties in North America. (For more details, you’ll have to check out John’s new book!)
Productive long-lived tree. Susceptible to scab. Blooms mid-late. Z3.
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