Comments on: The Legend of Johnny Appleseed

By: City Fruit Blog , Archive » Johnny Appleseed Day

City Fruit Blog , Archive » Johnny Appleseed Day — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 20:15:40 +0000

[...] let’s start off with a song to get us all in the mood. From the Disney film The Legend of Johnny Appleseed. The full version (in two parts) can be seen here — narrated by James Earl [...]

By: The Unexpected Apple

The Unexpected Apple — Fri, 17 Jul 2009 21:37:55 +0000

[...] Images has an interesting post up today on the real Johnny Appleseed. Turns out he wasn’t planting apples for the pioneers to eat [...]

By: Sociological Images » Rich Moms are Bad Moms: Vogue Italia’s “Vagaries of Fashion”

Sat, 20 Jun 2009 16:12:05 +0000

[...] on children, or the idea that drinking cocktails around the kids is problematic (and remember, we used to give kids alcoholic drinks and Marlboros were marketed to moms). And many people don’t believe that children need to be [...]

By: Alma

Alma — Mon, 15 Jun 2009 16:50:15 +0000

I have to say I do wonder if those of us who live in a world of Granny Smiths, Red Deliciouses, Galas, Pink Ladies, etc. are making a biased assumption that non-breed-specific apples are basically inedible. Just because we think of apples as big, juicy and sweet doesn’t make these qualitites essential to the apple or the ability to eat it.

I’ve eaten a lot of “tiny” apples in my life – little bitter ones from the tree in the back yard when I was a little kid, and little fairly sweet ones in Kazakhstan, the “birthplace” of the apple, although I can’t say if these are seed or graft trees.

By: cocolamala

cocolamala — Sun, 14 Jun 2009 19:58:24 +0000

i have been thinking about this movie lately too, i think that its interesting that were jonny appleseed to do that today, he would be likely to get sued by the agricultural industry. farmers who being sued by monsanto for patent infringement for saving seeds from harvest for future seasons, or for growing plants from seeds blown into their fields from neighboring farms. farmers have to sign a license when they buy seeds and agree to grow the plants only once and buy seeds again next year. google monsanto sues farmers

By: Linsey

Linsey — Sat, 13 Jun 2009 14:23:05 +0000

Its been awhile since I read Botany of Desire, but wasn’t there a child-bride?

What stuck out to me, for some reason, was the fact that AppleJack – the wholesome children’s cereal – shares its name with a liquor made by freezing apple cider and skimming the liquid off the top.

By: Captain Crab

Captain Crab — Sat, 13 Jun 2009 12:59:11 +0000

I am always amazed at how much I thought I knew, that I really didn’t know.

By: 2becontinued

2becontinued — Sat, 13 Jun 2009 07:19:30 +0000

I watched both parts of the Disney video, and being someone who’s getting into American Indian stuff right now, I noticed that the Johnny Appleseed legend sanitizes history in another way, namely Manifest Destiny and colonization of America. For example, in the second part of the Disney Johnny Appleseed video (which can be seen after the first part of the video in the post) there’s a scene where Johnny Appleseed looks on a dance that includes white settlers and Indians, because he enjoys seeing how his apples “bring people together”. This of course erases the conflicts between white settlers and Indians when settlers got the “frontier spirit” and moved west. Although that’s just the Disney video as a sample, the whole Johnny Appleseed legend as a whole seems to sanitize Manifest Destiny and its effects.

By: Reginagmail.com

Reginagmail.com — Sat, 13 Jun 2009 02:16:11 +0000

I saw that show. It was, as you said “…creative.”

By: Jeremy

Jeremy — Sat, 13 Jun 2009 01:13:07 +0000

“fermentation doesn’t necessarily rid the apples of any nutrients, since yeast only converts sugar into ethanol”
In fact, fermentation actually makes some foods more nutritious. The yeast adds lots of B vitamins and other essential nutrients to a diet the might otherwise be impoverished. In South America, corn was (and is) used to make chicha (an alcoholic beverage), which was far more nutritious than many other corn based products.
Nowadays, with all of our fortified foods, this probably isn’t much of an issue, but in colonial times it certainly would have helped to ferment your foods.

By: Dave

Dave — Fri, 12 Jun 2009 22:09:47 +0000

It also may be worth pointing out that cider, properly made, tastes absolutely amazing.

By: Fat Angie

Fat Angie — Fri, 12 Jun 2009 20:59:39 +0000

But, when water was unhealthy, the apple liquor was. So, it was still healthy (and fermentation doesn’t necessarily rid the apples of any nutrients, since yeast only converts sugar into ethanol, except fiber. I mean, look at how much press wine gets for being like… well… eating grapes, but without the fiber.)

Just a little food for thought. :)

By: Maggie

Maggie — Fri, 12 Jun 2009 18:20:41 +0000

wow, that’s really interesting. wasn’t it the same way with beer in Europe? since beer was boiled, it was safer to drink than water…

By: el forastero

el forastero — Fri, 12 Jun 2009 16:19:20 +0000

I remember how Neil gaiman repeats several times after his book American Good, how Johny Appleseed and paul bunyan were empty myths created to fill a boyd normally full of legends of old in the countries with more stories. Its really interesting this need of myths that we need, creating characters with scraps of reality to make it legends, because as a human we need those stories.