James Martin on Apples Great British Food Revival

-British produce is under threat.

-It's at the mercy of foreign invaders, market forces.

-And food fashion.

-Produce that has been around for centuries...

-Could die out within a generation.

-So together, we're on a mission...

-To save it.

We'll give you the best tips on how to find it, grow it and cook it.

And crucially, how to put sensational British produce...

Back on the food map.

I'm James Martin and I'm on a mission to find out why we aren't buying one of our greatest fruits.

Introduced by the Romans for its nutritious, versatile qualities,

it's fallen out of favour over the years due to foreign imports.

What is it? It's the Great British apple.

Let's be honest, the supermarket shelves are bursting with apples,

but surprisingly over 65% of these are imported.

I'm passionate about promoting British heritage apples,

whose distinct flavours are threatened with being lost forever.

In my campaign to help revive the British apple,

I'll be getting to the root of why it all started to go horribly wrong.

Supermarkets now demand perfect quality, texture, shape,

but they forget the most important thing - taste.

I'll be revealing the lengths some of the Great British public

are willing to go to to help save the British apple.

And, crucially, what you can all do to help.

And in the revival kitchen, I'll be showing you three fantastic recipes

to get our apples back onto the dinner plate, including my weekend feast of roast pork belly

and an apple tart - the perfect pudding to wow family and friends.

And if you're on a treadmill at this moment in time, run a bit quicker, cos the rest is coming.

So why am I so fanatical about British apples and why am I so keen to help their revival?

I remember trying a good old British apple for the first time in my gran's garden.

At the bottom of her allotment she had an apple tree

and jumping up as a kid, I used to pick these things.

It was full of flavour, full of moisture more than anything else.

She used to make amazing apple pies out of it, and at Bonfire Night,

stick a fork in it and you used to have delicious toffee apples.

There's nothing better in my mind than a good old British apple.

There was a time when over 1,200 different native British apples were grown across the UK.

But since the 1950s, we've lost 60% of our apple orchards

as farmers have been forced to turn them over to more profitable crops.

And where 25 years ago there were 1,500 commercial apple growers, now there are just 500.

To get to the heart of the problem, I'm starting my journey

at this 240-acre fruit farm near Sittingbourne,

which produces over two and half million kilos of apples every year,

but they only grow four types.

So what variety are these?

We've got Rubens apples here.

-Relatively a new one?

-Very new, yeah.

These have been in the ground...

This is their fourth year. And I don't think there are any older orchards of Rubens in the country.

Rubens are a recent arrival from Italy, becoming popular

with British growers because of their consistent taste and quality.

What dictates whether or not you grow Rubens or Cox's?

Is it something that you dictate, the supermarket, consumer, or is it the climate we're in?

The consumer, I think, led, probably, by the supermarket.

There's a need now, or a want, for a nice, red, shiny apple, as opposed to the old varieties

that are a lot more russety and older and harder to farm.

So the reality is that growers like Will have been forced

to turn to new varieties to satisfy the supermarkets.

But what I find more disturbing is that most of the apples sold in our stores aren't even grown here.

Surely, a British apple picked and on the shelves in days

must taste better than one shipped from thousands of miles away?

I'm taking my campaign to the streets and I want to see if the public can taste the difference

between an imported apple and a British one of exactly the same variety.

-Taste a bit.

-Thank you.

That's a Gala apple, OK?

That's a Gala, too.

-Can you tell the difference?

-That's loads better.

This one's travelled 8,000 miles.

I went into a supermarket 800 yards away from here.

I couldn't find your apple that was produced a mile away...

No, I'm always complaining in...

-I won't mention which one.

-It doesn't surprise me.

-Can you taste any difference?

-Mm.

-Which one?

You prefer the local one. That's quite interesting.

-I don't know...

-Yeah, that is the local one.

-How are you doing, guys? You all right?

-That one's better.

This one? Why is that?

-It's more sweeter.

-More sweeter.

Almost without exception, people prefer the freshness of the British Gala.

So I simply can't understand why supermarkets aren't clamouring for more of them.

When selecting apples to send to supermarkets, we look for something

that they can have an amount of continuity of supply on.

If you're looking at Gala and Braeburn around the world,

they're available 12 months of the year and we will put British in when available.

Now talking about around the world, because I'll be honest with you, about a mile down the road I went

to a supermarket and there was not a single British apple and I got one from New Zealand and one from Chile.

And that's a mile away. Do you think it's people's knowledge or what is it?

I'm afraid I can't defend them. They don't any excuse not to have English apples at this time of year.

Beginning of October is our busiest trading year in English apples.

There should be anything up to 15 varieties they could choose from.

But all too often that choice isn't there.

We can grow as good a fruit if not better than anywhere else in the world.

It's just people's perception.

If all they see is a foreign apple, that's what they buy.

So the first step on the road to the revival of the Great British apple is clear.

Next time I'm in the supermarket, I'm definitely going to look out for a British label.

We can all play our part in reviving the Great British apple and that starts with eating them.

For my first recipe I'll be making a traditional apple Charlotte, featuring Will's Rubens apples.

There's basically three ingredients in this -

butter, bread and the good old apple.

The really good qualities that come out of an apple are really needed

for this dish, because if it's got a poor taste in the apple, it's never going to work.

I'm going to stew these Rubens down for the filling of the Charlottes and as soon as you cut into them,

you can see how moist and full of flavour they are.

There's so much difference. You just get that secondary whack of flavour in your mouth.

Apple Charlotte was actually named after Queen Charlotte

and it's been around since about the 1800s. And there's two apple Charlottes.

There's either Charlotte Russe, which is traditionally set, and the French have nicked that one.

Whereas us British have really kept to our tradition

with the apple Charlotte being that hot dessert lined with bread.

So a touch of sugar in here, a bit of butter.

Throw in the apples.

It will only take about four to five minutes.

You could make a large one, but I'm going to prepare individual Charlottes,

which will speed up the cooking process.

Now I know what you're going to say, white sliced bread, but my grandmother taught me this recipe.

She used it, so I'm using it.

Chop out a bread disc, dip both sides in melted butter

and place in the bottom of a ramekin on top of some sliced apples.

And then you can take the edge.

And you dip them in,

place them in there.

And then just carefully overlap it only about a centimetre just overlapped around the edge.

Don't be frightened to press it into the sides a bit.

So apples are just about there now.

You have to ram it full of fruit.

So really cram it all in and you'd be surprised how many apples

go in just two desserts like this.

To finish, simply place a buttered disc on top and bake in the oven at 200 degrees.

So after about eight minutes,

you'll end up with these.

Now it will souffle up. The apples rise up and they souffle up.

And the top part of the bread becomes a little bit dry.

So the best tip is to take a clean tea towel and cover them over,

just press them slightly and they'll start to drop back down again.

And when they are ready, they can simply be turned out on to a plate.

Just leave it for a couple of seconds and then, hopefully, you should be able to lift this off.

Quite pleased with that.

And there we have it - my apple Charlotte.

Perfect with a dollop of homemade thyme custard.

The apples are just starting to fall.

You've almost got a little bite in there, but you've still got the puree in there and that's what you need.

Good old Queen Charlotte.

She had good taste, that lass.

I'm on a campaign to revive the ailing British apple,

but for some farmers competing against cheaper imports

might not make commercial sense.

So what can they do with all that unsold fruit?

Now until recently, all the apples in this orchard were given to the pigs as pig feed.

The supermarkets didn't want them, they didn't produce the perfect-looking apple.

But their loss is our gain because the owners are now turning it into the perfect drink - cider.

Simon Reed helps run the Hawkins Rough Orchard near Canterbury,

where they've been making artisan cider for the last four years.

-Hi, Simon. Busy at work, I see.

-Yeah, definitely.

-Harvest time.

-It is.

This is like, to me, the picture-postcard apple orchard.

So what varieties have you got, then?

We've got three main varieties - Bramley, Worcester and Crispin.

And we're under a Bramley tree here.

People looking at this will go, "Well, they're red."

Most people look at supermarket Bramleys and they're all green.

Well, these are the real, natural colour.

Also we get a little bit of cross-pollination from the Worcesters,

so we're getting red and green.

And this is the more typical Bramley in a real orchard.

-But also smaller as well.

-Yeah, absolutely.

-Have we got enough?

-We've got enough.

-Right, you carry that one.

I'll carry this one.

How many do we need to make a litre anyway?

We need about two kilograms.

Simon produces four types of cider, but with these Bramley apples he'll be making his dry cider.

First the apples are fed onto a conveyor belt

and passed through a scratter, which chops them up into small pieces.

Next, the pulp is wrapped in hessian mesh cloths, which are stacked on top

of each other until there's enough to make one pressing.

Finally, the strained juice is poured into Scottish whisky barrels made of oak,

where it's left to ferment and mature for a year or more.

So what are we trying first?

This is the Rough Old Wife, our dry cider.

Only you could think of a name like that.

-It is dry, isn't it?

-Mm.

You should get a little bit of oak and a little whisky starting to come through at the end.

You do get the whisky!

-So what have we got here, a medium one?

-Yep.

What would be your biggest seller?

I guess we'd say probably the medium cider. But that tends to reflect age groups as well.

-Right.

-The older people tend to have a slightly drier palate.

All right. Cheers.

See, that's more my kind of thing.

-You're a younger man.

-Well, -ish, -ish!

Cheers.

I have to say, it's real hats off to what Simon's done here.

Taking a product that used to be served to the pigs and producing a fantastic artisan product.

Cider makers don't care about perfectly formed apples, as it's all about great flavour.

So this is the next way we can all support the British apple industry.

Cider made from apples, that's one product that can really benefit

from people going into their local pub saying, "I want a real cider."

That's makes the difference. Why don't we all get behind it

and start saying we want to buy the real apple?

If the supermarkets don't want these apples, then I certainly do.

The sharpness of Simon's Bramleys will be perfect for my next recipe

of roast pork belly stuffed with apples and sage.

And for this dish you need the right type of meat.

What's really important with pork belly,

it needs to be pork that's bred to do one thing and one thing only,

that's sit in a field and eat, predominantly apples. Not bred to do the 100-metre hurdles,

i.e. have too much meat to fat on there.

It's got to be almost 50-50%, which this is.

Score the belly with a sharp blade to ensure you get great crackling.

Now get some really good sea salt.

Put plenty on the board.

Take the pork and place it on top of the salt, like that.

Now this is where you use the Bramley-style apples that we got from those orchards. Fantastic apples.

Now the process of putting apples, on particularly meat like pork,

has been around for thousands of years.

The Romans used to serve apples and pork.

They've got an element of sharpness and sharpness will cut through the fat of the meat.

And all I'm going to do is just grate the apple over the top of the pork, like that.

Add some sage, about six leaves should be enough.

Roll, then tie up the pork.

The whole idea of this is to keep the meat nice and tight while it cooks.

Start at one end and tie a little knot

in the top.

And you do a loop.

Pull the string through and you're almost lassoing.

And it starts to tighten up.

Finish off the end with a double knot and put the roll of belly on a bed of onions, ready for the oven.

It's important when you're doing pork like this and you want nice

and crispy crackling, you get the oven as hot as you can.

About 250 degrees centigrade. As hot as the oven will go and shock it with nothing else for about half an hour.

So in the meantime, I'm going to show you how to make the perfect apple accompaniment.

The secret, I find, with my apple sauce is brown sugar,

cos I think it really lends itself well to the caramelisation of the apples.

So get a nice hot pan on the stove first of all.

And then we've got our apples here.

Now this is what I love about apples from an orchard. This is how they should be.

Supermarkets would just throw these away,

but there's so much flavour, even though they're marked.

It's such a shame that apples like this are used for just cider.

It doesn't matter about the brown anyway, you throw the whole lot in.

See, look at that - proper apple.

Grab some of our sugar.

We don't like too much sugar, cos obviously you want to use

that sharpness to cut through the fattiness of the meat.

Add cinnamon and nutmeg to give it that rich, aromatic flavour, followed by the apples.

And keep the pan really hot so the sugar starts to caramelise.

Once the apples start to brown, add the cider.

Slightly cover the fruit and simmer for about five minutes.

And that's your spicy apple sauce.

You can allow that to go cold, stick it in a glass jar and it will last for a week. Easy as that.

After three hours slow roasting on a low heat, the pork should be perfect.

Now this is what it's all about - the end.

Or rather, nearly the end.

Check that out - nice, lovely roast pork.

I'm going to lift that off now.

This is always the chef's piece.

It's worth the three-hour wait! Trust me.

There's nothing better than roast belly pork.

And stuffed with those apples, it makes it even better.

And there you have it, my slow-roast belly pork

stuffed with apples and sage with a lovely spiced apple sauce.

I remember walking round an apple orchard for the first time when I was just a young kid.

The taste of a freshly picked apple was fantastic.

I remember it being a Russet Pippin and the flavour was very similar to pineapple.

But over recent years, most of our heritage varieties have almost disappeared

and if we don't support them, they'll be gone forever.

Thankfully, there is a place in Faversham that's striving

to keep our heritage apple trees alive, including one with a unique history.

Now this is the Isaac Newton fruit tree.

It's been around since the 17th century. It's not the actual tree, but the DNA's the same.

It's part of the National Fruit Collection at Brogdale Farm.

And it's this that's really important.

It's our heritage, it's our history and it's vital that we keep it going.

This is a real treasure trove, home to 650 different varieties of native British apple trees,

and for many of them, this is the only location in the world where they're still grown.

-Ah, Margaret.

-Oh, hello, James.

-How are you doing? Lovely to see you.

Show me some of your collection.

The work they do here at Brogdale is crucial if we're to keep a living link with our apple heritage.

And whilst I'm here, I'm hoping to pick up a couple of varieties to use in my last recipe.

Well, we're looking for a really special apple for you, James,

and this is one called Golden Noble.

So what's the history behind this, then?

Well, this was an apple that was discovered in the middle of the late 1800s.

-So the Victorians would cook with these?

-They certainly would

and it was one of the well-favoured apples,

because it looks nice when cooked. It keeps a lovely colour.

-Now, it's a soft texture but quite sharp as well.

-It has that little sharpness.

-Is there plenty of these around or not?

-This is rare. You won't buy this in the shop.

Which is great. Even rarer now.

-Ballard Beauty.

-That's right. And it's a beautiful little apple.

-Right.

It is thought to have got Cox in its parentage and so it's going to have

-that quite nice intense flavour.

-And the size of it's quite small?

It's a lovely small apple, which is probably why you don't see it around,

because it's not commercial. Small apples are not commercial.

This is a very odd peculiarity called Knobby Russet.

-Right.

-You can see the Russet and you can see the knobs.

Right. So is this a cooking, eating apple? What is it?

-It is, supposedly, an eating apple.

-Now, the unique thing about these...

Cos this is the most unusual apple I think I've ever seen.

If people have apple trees, don't know what it is, could they bring you a cutting?

Yes. They need to send us about three apples, plus some foliage and a little bit of its history.

And we do a very good identification service.

And even better, I think, you can take a little sampling of these trees home.

So you could actually grown your own...

You can. We supple a grafting service, so any one of the varieties

that you see in the collection that takes your fancy we can provide a new baby tree for you.

I'm having a bit of Knobby Russet in my back garden, that's what I'm having.

Brogdale isn't just steeped in history.

It's also using its collection and new farming techniques to help grow the apples of the future.

They're developing new types of trees, some with two trunks

and others which don't grow long branches, making them resemble vines.

As they need less pruning and the fruit is easier to pick,

this should keep the cost down for the British farmers

and help them compete for shelf space in the supermarkets.

Having been here for just one day, I've fallen in love with this place.

I love what Brogdale are doing. I love embracing technology and new research,

but for me really the true ethos of this place is in the heritage varieties.

650 varieties of native English apples.

That's almost half, just half, of what the native apple population of the UK once was.

And if you have got an apple tree at home, if you really think

you've got something peculiar and something odd and great tasting in your back garden,

this is the place where you can send it to and you can find out whether it's one of the 600 missing trees.

My last recipe is another dessert. As pastry is my passion, you'll have to forgive me.

I'm going to show you a show-stopping baked custard and apple tart with a spiced apple compote.

Now I'm using this Golden Noble here. Now it is actually quite rare.

There's only two of these trees in Kent, but you can use Cox's apples which are good.

It has a little sharp flavour to it as well, which works well with this recipe.

I'm going to puree this one into a tart.

And this Ballard Beauty that we've got here...

Quite a sharp-tasting apple as well. But again, you can use the same Cox's apple for this one.

I'm going to roast it off as a little compote on the side.

So first thing I'm going to do is make our pastry. Now for that I need some flour and some sugar.

My grandmother used to make this while watching Corrie.

And I can't even get close to how good she was at making it, cos she used to do it all the time.

But she used to rub it together in her hands and it almost dissolved when you put it in your mouth.

Mix together with some butter to get a fine crumb.

Add an egg

and bring together to form a dough.

Refrigerate that for about 20 minutes before rolling out.

Now I remember doing this for the first time in France when I was training as a pastry chef.

So you used to get a copy of the French equivalent

to The Sun newspaper and you used to have to read the newspaper through the pastry.

And until you could read it, the pastry chef wouldn't let me line the tin.

So get it as thin as you possibly can.

And to stop the pastry from breaking up, gently lay it over the tart tin

and carefully press it in before baking it blind for about five minutes.

Right, for our puree, the most important thing is to try not to make it too sweet.

You want that definition of custard, which is sweet,

although we're not putting sugar in, I'm going to use honey.

Place the chunks of apple in the pan with some melted butter and a touch of sugar until they soften.

So while that's cooking... Remember this tartlet's in two stages.

There's layers to it. So for this, we're going to make a cold custard.

Start with three whole eggs and two egg yolks.

We're going to add some honey.

And then double cream.

This is definitely...

not for the health conscious.

And if you're on a treadmill at this moment in time, run a bit quicker, cos the rest is coming.

That's it. You don't need to do anything else with that.

Having egg washed the pastry case, to help seal it,

cook for a further five minutes and then you can trim off the edges.

These bits here are for the chef.

Delicious!

Just like granny used to make. Homemade pastry is the best.

Next you can grab your puree

and pop the puree just in the base of your tartlet, like that.

Grab in some of this...lovely mixture. Carefully ladle it on.

And then fill the rest of it

while you're down here.

And make sure that it's really full to the brim.

Then gently cook it in the oven on a low heat for about an hour.

Now to go alongside this I thought I'd do a nice little apple compote.

Very simple.

For this I'm using the small Ballard Beauty.

Its intense flavour will combine perfectly with the spices in the compote.

In we go with a sprinkle of sugar.

And this will start to caramelise in the pan straightaway. I can then throw in the apples.

So just leave it like that.

And at the same time now we can add our spices.

I want a sensory overload of wintery flavours, so I'm using star anise,

ground cloves, nutmeg, vanilla and cinnamon.

Straightaway it smells Christmassy.

You can use some Armagnac brandy.

Perfect combination with apples.

Flame this.

It gets rid of all that alcohol straightaway. Look at that!

And that's it. That's your simple little apple compote done.

I've allowed the tart to rest in the fridge for about half an hour.

So here's a neat and simple tip to get it out of the tin.

Lift out your tartlet tin. Take something small, like that.

Hold it and it just falls underneath.

And then you can lift this off.

You can take a nice slice.

It should just fall a little bit.

There, look at that. That's what you're looking for.

Put some of your apple compote on there and then, finally...

Cos I did warn you lot at the gym.

..double cream. And then just serve that on the side.

And there you have my apple and custard tart with a compote of spiced apples.

See, Granny Smith. That's not the name of an apple,

that's what she was called - Granny Smith.

She'd be looking down on me now going,

"You've listened to me, lad."

That's delicious.

So how do we get people to eat more British apples?

We could ask the supermarkets to do more.

Personally, I think it's our fault.

It's our lack of understanding

about what's really great and grown right on our doorstep.

And if the British apple is to stand any chance of being revived, we all need to play our part.

And even if you don't have your own apple trees, that's no excuse.

Take these residents of New Ash Green in Kent,

who take part in a community scheme

which has reclaimed an ancient apple orchard within their village.

Their housing estate was built in the 1960s on derelict farmland

and the orchard remained abandoned until seven years ago.

I think people are really proud

of having such a really brilliant, traditional orchard

right in the heart of their village.

There are around 200 similar projects across the country

and they all provide more than just a link with the past.

It's not just about the physical act of picking the apples, but it's the chance of eating them afterwards.

And that's the important bit!

'So it's simple. It's up to us to protect and revive our British apples.

'There are many ways to support this. Support your local shop, anything that's selling British apples.

'Visit your local orchard. Grow a tree yourself.

'Cos, to be honest, if we don't support'

the British apple, most of this stuff is going to be gone forever.

So really it's down to us.

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