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Word of the Week (152): BEAUFIN (probability 5595), by David Sutton

A BEAUFIN is a variety of red cooking apple; it has the anglicised variant BIFFIN.

I am fortunate in having near my home an apple farm where one can still buy real English apples instead of the waxy cottonwool-tasting imports that flood our supermarkets. I love English apples: even the names are sweet and crunchy: RIBSTON, PEARMAIN, REDSTREAK, WINESAP, PIPPIN, POMROY. Then there is the rather elongated CODLIN (also CODLING or QUODLIN), the JENNETING (delightfully metamorphosed by false etymology into JUNEATING), the SWEETING, the GREENING and the QUARENDEN (with variants QUARENDER, QUARRENDER and QUARRINGTON).

For good measure Shakespeare gives us a couple of apple names too: the sweet juicy POMWATER and the COSTARD.

And to conclude on an even more mouth-watering note, I wonder if anyone still has PANDOWDY, a deep pie or pudding made of baked apples, or of sliced bread and apples baked together, with no bottom crust.

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