This is an I-Heart podcast.

Guess what, Mango? What's that, Will? So I was reading this article in Mother Jones. It's by-and-Jakbson. Oh, yeah, I know that byline. He writes all those great food articles. Like, there was that one on a cheese a while back, I think. Yeah, yeah. Well, for this article, he was writing about apples. We're going to go with a different food topic. Apples and apple tree specifically. And, you know, until I read this piece, I had no idea how long an apple tree could live. Did you know? I have no idea. This isn't in your list of facts. Well, actually, I'm just going to quote him here. it says even when abandoned, an apple tree can live more than 200 years.

And like the giving tree in Shell Silverstein's book, it will wait patiently for the boy to

return. There is a bent old black Oxford tree and Hollowell, Maine that is approximately two

centuries old and still gives a crop of midnight purple apples each fall. I've actually never heard of midnight purple apples.

We're learning so many things today.

Well, apparently the U.S. used to have thousands of different varieties of apples in the 1800s,

and the styles are really astonishing.

And since we're getting into fall and apple picking season,

we thought it'd be fun to do a list of nine things all about apples.

So let's dig in. Hey there, podcast listeners. Welcome to part-time genius. I'm Will Pearson. And as always, I'm joined by my good friend, Mangash, hot ticketer. And sitting behind the soundproof glass, trying to stack apples three on top of each other. How long do you think he's been doing this, Megan? For a little while, it's very zen. I guess that's how tall a smurf is supposed to be, three apples, right? Three apples. That's our friend and producer Tristan McNino, always up to something. What a weirdo, but we love him. So I'm actually happy you picked apples as a topic because our cute little neighbor, Ben, who is the best dressed gentleman on our block this morning. I thought you talk about Ben Bowling, the podcaster here. I was like, he's not that little. Or well-dressed. Actually, he is well-dressed. But our neighbor brought these little bag of apples over this morning because he'd gone apple picking this weekend. And in Georgia, I mean, it's late September here, but it is so warm. I don't really think of it as apple picking season. And seeing that was almost my first reminder that it was fall now. But where do you want to start? Well, how about we start with just the varieties of apples? I know we mentioned just how many there used to be here in the States. And I found this list of 18 apples with these incredible names that our friend Erica O'Krant did for mental floss.

And the names are just so great. So we've got Spartan, dog snout, Winterstein, Rusty Coat, Coeur de Boefe,

which is one of my favorites, which means heart of beef and my favorite American mother.

So those are some tough sounding names, and they almost sound like punk rock bands or something.

Actually, it's funny you say that because there is one with an umlaught that looks like a hair band.

It's called Utweiler Spotlobber, I think. I'm sure I said that right.

And it does not sound appealing the way you say that.

But, you know, Docs now isn't like an apple I'm super keen to bite into, but I am curious, like, in reading all these descriptions, are there any of these rare varietals that you're actually eager to try?

I mean, there was actually something in that Rowan Jacobson piece. So like we mentioned,

in the mid-1800s, there were thousands of different types of apples. And as industrial

agriculture came to the forefront, apple growers picked a handful of varieties to promote,

and often settling on the ones that were the hardiest to transport for obvious reasons.

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