NORTHERN SPY APPLE

What used to be Captain Perry’s sleeping quarters is now our coziest room and best value. The Northern Spy Suite has windows looking out the front of the house with a seasonal view of Town Mountain and a view of the south lawn where our future Pétanque (similar to lawn bowling) court will be placed. The room’s features include dedicated climate control, a petite modern writing desk with a professor’s reading chair nearby, a ceiling fan, and the legendary king-size Duxiana 6006 bed. This suite’s artwork is comprised of colorful vintage food and cocktail menus from the 1930’s to the 1950’s.

The people around Bloomfield and Rochester, New York say it was named by the locals after the hero of a dime store novel, The Northern Spy. According to Conrad D. Gemmer, writing on the Out on a Limb Apples website, the book was written anonymously, published sub-rosa, and circulated among radical hard-core abolitionists circa 1830. In the story, the hero organized a series of safe houses for runaway slaves to escape to Canada. Traveling to southern plantations, he pretends to be a slave catcher but instead secretly instructs slaves how to escape using his routes and safehouses. In the publication, and thirty years before the actual Civil War, the abolitionist hero is killed in Manassas, Virginia during an imaginary first battle of the “War to Free the Slaves.”

Unless you are from the Bloomfield area, you probably don’t know that the Northern Spy is the fifteenth most popular apple variety in the States. That is where a bronze plaque marks the site of the original tree. The tree, unnamed at the time, was reportedly “discovered” around 1800. However, due to initial setbacks in successfully cultivating the tree, Northern Spy did not produced fruit commercially until about 1830.

The Northern Spy was honored by the post office with its own stamp in 2013 reminding us that “Spies are for Pies.”. According to the U.S. Postal Service website, that little rhyme is a reminder that generations of cooks have found the Northern Spy apple delicious when baked in desserts. Its tart, tangy taste makes it less of a favorite for eating in hand, but it stores well and tends to last longer because of its late season. This variety is also good for cider and juice.