Applesauce

Plugging “apple lore” into my search engine called up a host of references to events that are part of the Apple electronics empire.

I was really looking for some inspiration for some simple stories to interest preschoolers. You know the kind of thing: stories like “The Round Red House,” where Grandma sends the child out to find the little house with no doors and no windows and inside the house hides a star!

Maybe the children would be just as interested in how Steve Jobs persuaded Xerox to invest a $1 million in an unproven technology and pulled more than a golden goose out of the Lisa Goo (excuse me, GUI.)

To me, the moment when grandma twists open the apple to reveal the star has a magic more appealing than counting how many 18 carat eggs a chunk of electronics can lay. If the stories were told more from the perspective of how the revolutionary operating environment works, they would hold my attention more - though I doubt even that would interest preschoolers for very long.

The story I was really looking for was the one that has something to say about paring the peel from an apple in one, curling spiral. Instead, I read about the tradition of throwing the peel over one's shoulder to form, in its landing position, the initial of his or her lover's name. I’m sure the story I’m looking for deals with something else!

I thought there was some connection between the scalloping peel that related in some way to a cosmic reality... and I did find an old wives’ tale that spoke of longevity and the length of the peel. Probably it’s just another old wives’ tale that’s tantalizing my memory.

Trying another search engine revealed there is new evidence to recommend one not peel the apple at all, but eat it with the rest of the apple. Seems the peel contains many useful plant chemicals, among which is rutin, which delivers some benefits that are scientifically proven: it’s an antioxidant, cholesterol reducer and may strengthen the blood vessels. Nice stuff! And, we can get it locally! But - would toddlers be interested?

There was much discussion about the poisonous potential hiding inside the tough cuticle of apple seeds. As with other members of the rose tree family (the apple is one), cyanide lurks within the seeds. Cyanide in its many forms is a fatal poison, but our bodies can detoxify it is small amounts. When the seeds are chewed and mixed with gastric juices, the resulting cyanide compounds can cause weakness, headache, nausea, increased rate of respiration and eye and skin irritation. Good thing most of us don’t go about amassing apple seeds in our cereal bowls and chomping them down like so much flax seed!

So... taking stock, we have: a couple of old wives’ tales, an enchanting story about a hidden star and some cautionary advice about the seeds - enough bits and pieces to make applesauce, don’t you think?