A Mouthful of Diversity: Knowledge of Cider Apple Cultivars in the United Kingdom and Northwest United States

Abstract

A Mouthful of Diversity: Knowledge of Cider Apple Cultivars in the United Kingdom and Northwest United States. There is a general assumption in the study of folk taxonomy that those people who have been interacting with a given crop the longest have the most knowledge about the crop’s names. We treated this as an hypothesis which can be tested with knowledge of cider apples. This use of apples extends back many generations in some places, while in other regions people are just learning to make cider. The experimental design is to assess quantitatively the cider apple diversity being used compared to the knowledge of this diversity by cider makers. The test involves two populations of cider makers: those who come from a long-standing tradition of cider making and those who recently learned to make cider. Research was conducted in parts of England, Wales, Northern Ireland, and Washington State, U.S.A. Semistructured interviews and questionnaires were used to elicit cider apple variety names. Traditional knowledge associated with cider production was also collected. Eighty-two cider apple variety names were obtained. In addition, it is estimated that between 111 and 328 varieties were recognized but could not be named. There was a significant difference between the cider apple cultivars that cider makers could name and those that they could discern. On average, cider makers could name eight varieties, but discern 16 varieties of cider apples largely on the basis of appearance, taste, and smell. There was no significant difference in the knowledge of cider apple variety names between long-standing cider makers and those that recently learned to make cider. As with cider apples, we would expect that farmers of other culturally-significant crops would not always know named diversity if there are other cues to let them track varietal difference, such as appearance, taste, or smell.