Sunday, September 25, 2011

Who is Granny Smith, anyway?

I was walking through Pike Place Market this weekend, and I saw a beautiful pile of bright green apples displayed at one of the several fruit stands. Written on a sign in bright red letters, the apples were advertised as “Granny Smith” for $1.99 per pound.

I have spent my whole life enjoying the sweet, yet tart deliciousness of the Granny Smith apple, but whose grandma is this apple actually named after? I wanted to shout right then and there, “Can the real Granny Smith please stand up!?”

But I didn’t. However, I had found my MUSE! I bought a pound of the bright green fruits and headed back to my writer’s studio to research. Here is what I found.

Maria Ann Sherwood Smith of Sussex, England is the real Granny Smith. She was born in 1799 to a farm laborer. (A farm laborer is a person who works on the farm but does not own it. That would be the farmer or planter.) She later married a farm laborer herself, Thomas Smith.
The couple had eight children before they decided to leave England with several other farming families to New South Wales, Australia. They boarded the Lady Nugent and arrived in Sydney on November 27th, 1838.

The couple had another child, and in the mid 1850’s, Thomas purchased 24 acres of land for the family’s first orchard.

And as the story goes, around 1868 Maria found some seedling apple trees growing along a creek bank on her property. She figured they had come from a variety of French crab apples. She kept working with the seedlings and finally developed the crunchy, sweet and sour cultivar we know today as the Granny Smith apple.

Sadly, Granny Smith did not live to see her apples reach commercial success. But her legacy lives on today for developing one of the best cooking and desert apples of all time. It wasn’t until 1935 that the Granny Smith was cultivated in England (her homeland). And in 1972, the Granny Smith was introduced to the United States.

Granny Smith died in 1870, and while she had several grandchildren of her own – she is the only woman known to the whole world as Granny Smith.

With this new knowledge, what kind of story could you write? Maybe these what if questions will help you get started.
WHAT IF your main character developed his/her own apple cultivar? Maybe this apple gives people invisibility if they eat it.

WHAT IF the ghost of Granny Smith was haunting the apple orchard in your story? What does she want? What will she do to get it?

WHAT IF you used James and the Giant Peach as your inspiration and wrote a story about a character and a giant apple. How could you make the story unique from Roald Dahl’s classic tale?
The possibilities are endless, and please leave your own what if questions in the comment section below. I’d love to see what you come up with.

So, grab a cup of hot cocoa, a pencil and a piece of paper, and let’s begin. With your imagination, we can go anywhere. I look forward to seeing where you take us.

With Imagination,
Professor Watermelon

The word of the day is “cultivar”. Here is the definition: A variety of plant that originated and persisted under cultivation. This means that the plant did not originate in the wild. Humans have altered the plant to produce a better taste, a more desired color, higher yield, etc.. The Granny Smith apple is a cultivar. It never existed in the wild.

9 comments:

  1. What if a Granny Smith apple became giant and rolled over the world? What if the Granny Smith apple became alive? What if Granny Smith became alive again?

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  2. What if a granny smith apple had a brain?

    ReplyDelete
  3. What if a granny smith apple could walk?
    What if a granny smith apple could talk?
    What if a granny smith apple had lung, heart, mouth and hair?
    What if granny smith is a granny smith apple?
    What if a granny smith apple is a garbage can?
    What if a person ate a poisoned granny smith apple and the guy died?
    What if a snake spit on a granny smith apple and a person ate it?
    What if a granny smith apple changed into a chair?
    What is a granny smith apple was as useful as a computer?
    What if a granny smith apple turned giant and became a house?
    What if a granny smith apple could be sat on like a chair?
    What if granny smith ran into the woods and found millions of granny smith apples?
    What if a granny smith apple turned red?
    What if a granny smith apple turned purple?
    What if a granny smith apple turned blue?
    What if a granny smith apple turned into a caterpillar?
    What if a granny smith apple turned giant and formed a new world?

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  4. what if frankinstien was a teacher
    what if frankinstien was made out of a rainbow
    what if frankinstien did the hokey-pokey
    what if there were two frankinstiens
    what if frankinstien was a girl

    ReplyDelete
  5. What if granny smith ate blue apples?
    What if granny smith ate to many granny smith apples that she turned green?
    What if granny smith had an iPod?
    What if granny amity did not like granny smith apples?
    What if granny smith was a granny smith apple?
    What if a granny smith apple had feet?
    What if a granny smith apple played baseball?
    What if a granny smith apple did not want to talk?
    What if a guy at a granny smith apple but it ghost?
    What if granny smith did not now what a granny smith apple was?
    What if an granny smith apple wants to go back where he was born?
    What if a granny smith apple had a mom?
    What if a granny smith apple did not like to be eaten?
    What if I saw a the last granny smith apple in the world?
    What if a granny smith apple was a boat?
    What if a granny smith apple was not any thing?
    What if an granny smith apple was a pool?
    What if a granny smith apple saw the football games?
    What if any granny smith apple could fly in the sky?
    What if an granny smith apple had homework?
    What if an granny smith apple had 700 dollars?
    What if a granny smith apple was bigger then a big dad?
    What if ever body in the world did not like granny smith apples?

    ReplyDelete
  6. What if granny smith was a monster?
    What if granny smith apples turned in to moms?
    What if any granny smith apple could walk?
    What if a granny smith apple could talk?
    What if a granny smith apple could do flips?
    What if ever granny smith apple cord fly?
    What if a granny smith apple could change in to a monster?

    ReplyDelete
  7. What if a granny smooth apple said "I want granny smith"?

    ReplyDelete
  8. What if a granny smith apple could walk?
    What if a granny smith apple talked?
    What if a granny smith apple could fly?
    What if a granny smith apple was Granny smith?
    What if a granny smith apple drank milk?
    What if a granny smith apple hand a iPod?
    What if a granny smith apple read a book?
    What if a granny smith apple said "I do not like corn"?
    What if a granny smith apple talked about bugs?

    ReplyDelete
  9. What if granny smith apples cebrated christmas



    jack hufford

    ReplyDelete