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I had a tiny tantalizing sliver of this antique apple on a walk at Tower Hill. Now I've got a whole Tolman Sweet to eat.
Somewhere between small and large, this yellow apple is streaked with green, stippled with a light blotchy blush, and decorated with russety scars. Note the green seam running vertically down the left side of the apple.
Small lenticels are prominent only when darkened with russet (which is not unusual).
Sweet!
Despite the "give," Tolman's flesh is crisp and delicately crunchy, a yellow off-white, fine grained, and only moderately juicy. Its flavors are sweet and refined. A little balancing tartness behind the scenes puts this in the range of the great eating apples.
Its tastes feel somehow high pitched, by which I mean that they are subtle and clean, white table grapes and flowers. Maybe some berries. It's very pleasant.
There's also something very clean and satisfying about chewing and swallowing this fruit. It just feels good in my body, and leaves a lovely sweet aftertaste in its wake.
This is an old-fashioned apple of excellent quality. Try one to see what kind of flavors were in vogue in the 19th century.
Tolman originated in Dorchester, Massachusetts, now (like Roxbury of russet fame) part of the City of Boston.
Various alternative names, according to Beach's Apples of New York, revolve around sweet variants for "Tolman" (Tallman's Sweet, Tolmn, Talman Sweeting, and Douce de Talman, for instance).
Beach (344) also says this hardy apple is "often marked by a suture line extending from the cavity."
A few commercial orchards continue to grow Tolman Sweet today, and Fedco sells Tolman trees.
May their number increase!
Update: A Mr. Peter Tallman has some family-historical information about this apple on his web site. His research suggests several alternative origin stories.
Also check out this charming 83-second video review of Tolman Sweet from Suzan Poizner at Orchard People. Nice job!
The Talman Sweet planted in my orchard dates back to the late 40s and it had a great crop this year. On our farm in Southern Ontario, Dad used to call it the "medicine man's apple". Eat it when you have a cold trying to get the best of you. A colicky horse eats this apple to feel better. I can remember giving cows these apples before calling the vet about "off her feed". Frances
ReplyDeleteThat is a great story about this apple, thanks!
DeleteI did not get any this year, alas.
I'm trying to find orchards that carry this apple in Toronto area.
DeleteGo to Cricklewood Farm between Cobourg and Brighton along old Highway #2 in eastern Ontario.
DeleteMoore's orchard in Cobourg and Spring meadow orchards are where I get my fix every year
DeleteI just finished kicking a bunch of fallen Tolman fruit against the trunks of my six trees (total of 70 trees in the orchard). The fruit are all over the ground because the porcupines just love them. Every year at this time they climb the Tolmans, chew off the branches, knock half the apples out of the trees, then spend the night chomping on them. These trees I have found are good mostly for feeding the pigs and adding sugary fruit to cider blends. Hard to sell them. They're like sugar balls.
ReplyDeleteI tried to like this apple, but it was too bland. Very sweet, but with no tartness at all, and very little apple flavor or aroma. it tasted like pure cane sugar. like a bad supermarket Red Delicious. Maybe I got a bad batch, or it was a bad year, but mine were insipid and dull.
ReplyDeleteIt certainly can happen! Also, there are probably places in the world where these just do not grow right.
DeleteBut you might give them another try sometime, if you get the chance.
I have one in my backyard it has to be over 80 yrs old and still produces. I used to climb it as a child.
ReplyDeleteThat is a charming story, Patricia, thank you. Tolman should be grown more widely.
DeleteHi Adam - My grandfather planted a Tolman Sweet about 80 years ago - this past winter I germinated and grew about 6 seedlings. My cousin (who I assume is correct) mentioned my seedlings will be "a wild apple" and not a "Tolman" sweet - so I would have to graft a branch from the original tree on to the wild stock - / - would that be your understanding of how to grow a "Tolman apple tree" from my grandfather's tree?
ReplyDelete@Stephen: Yes, that is how it is done. See heterozygous.
Delete(Not Adam) That is exactly what I would do. Good luck!
ReplyDeleteEvery year, as Fall approaches, I think about the aroma and terrific flavor from the couple of bushels of Tolmans that my mom would bring home from Hall's Apple Farm in my hometown of Lockport, NY, roundabout 1968. The Hall's Farm's two remaining Tolman trees were dying and falling by 1980. In the late 1990's, my sons and I happened across an original standard-height Tolman growing in Golden Hill State Park on the Lake Ontario shore. I could smell it from 100 yards away, and I thought, "Hey, wait a minute, I know that. What is that?" It washed over me in a rush as I recognized the fruitt on the ground, a sort of OMG moment reaching back 30 years, to my childhood. My eldest son deemed it a "free-range" Tolman tree. Ha! So true! It must have been part of a farmer's orchard from decades before, perhaps 100 years old, long before the land was turned over to New York State and made part of this beautiful lake-shore park.
ReplyDeleteLarry, that is a wonderful story about apples and memory.
DeleteI learned recently that the southern shore of Lake Ontario is the primary apple-growing region for new York.
The lake-effect mini-climate there moderates temperature extremes and permits a longer growing season.
We use talman sweets for a family recipe for an apple pickle and cannot find any this year! Any suggestions for a alternative?
ReplyDelete@Unknown, "apple pickle" sounds delightful. I do not know what would answer, and I'm not sure that anything is really like a Tolman.
DeleteBut in my mind it lives in the same neighborhood as a number of other high-quality- old-style, sub-acid varieties.
So consider, maybe, one of the Limbertwigs, if not too dense, or the Reinettes Clouchard and Simirenko.
Other candidates: Opalescent, Sweet Winter Pennock, and Sutton Beauty.
Squirrels absolutely love this apple and will eat every one before they are ripe!
ReplyDelete