No Fruit Picking

 No Fruit Picking
     By Frog Leather Leigh

In 1000 AD no fruit grew on the steppes of Asia. The Mongols had had a taste of raisins imported from the Mediterranean, but apples, oranges, papayas, pomegranates, weese, grapes, grapefruits, pineapples and cherries had never yet been tasted by a single Mongolian. They harvested blueberries, pin-cherries, snake berries, chokecherries, loganberries, strawberries, raspberries, gooseberries, snorgies and huckleberries, but these undomesticated fruits remained only available in small quantities most years. History changes behind our backs. No questions we ask make any difference to it. And that indifference of history to personal agon exactly characterizes the story of fruit in the Caucasus. This is the account of the coming of fruit to the Mongolian plains. 
     Benghis Kahn, brother-in-law to Genghis, was born in the year 944 into a wealthy family with ties to power. He was a musing fellow it became evident as he grew, and he liked nothing better than to sit nibbling raisins and reading in his “uncle’s” library. Food was not allowed in the library but for this young, fastidious, shy boy Genghis made an exception. Genghis loved Benghis in an honourable way and would have done anything to promote the lad’s desires and loves. When one day Benghis asked to accompany Generals Sarovovian and Slobobadin on a mission into Northern China, Genghis agreed, despite his grave fear for the boy’s survival, given Chinese penchants. Benghis went, and he returned unharmed. In fact, he returned elated and filled with wonder.
     His wonder concerned a discovery. To everybody’s equal wonder, Benghis brought back with him seeds. Sacks full of them. Apple seeds! For the first time in their history, fruit entered the lives of Mongolians. In his great joy and generosity (attributable to the goodness and kindness of Genghis’ own character, really) Benghis began to distribute apple seeds about the grounds of the Palace. Outdoors, he also planted seedlings that he grew during the winter, indoors where light entered the passageway bordering the library. 
     He planted 6000 seeds the first winter, and 5000 seedlings survived. These became the primary apple source for all the fruit with which the Khans learned to cook during the next many years. They baked and consumed apple pies, upside-down apple cake, apple strudels, apple platz, apple kartoflehgn, and apple tortekahn (a recipe created by Genghis himself) until they grew almost sick of apple dessert. Yet, they did not. A season later, apple fever once again found its way into their stomachs and more apple cakes and fruit platters materialized and were ingested.
     General Genghis became extra fond of picking apples. He would climb a step ladder into the orchard near the Palace, get up as high as he could and pick away his afternoons of an August day when little else called him to duty. He picked them, brought them by the bucket into the kitchen and had his cooks prepare both succulent dishes from them as well as make them into cider, for his consumption as well as that of the troops. Apple cider is potent beyond the ordinary. Unlike wine, it easily allows the production of drink with an alcohol content well over 18%, and that without the artificial addition of purified alcohol.      
     So, apple cider became a fixture in many a royal as well as many an ordinary household. A flask of it was considered a necessary item of apparel on a man, woman, maid or young fellow. Such an accessory could be seen prominently dangling about the being of most individuals attending the theater, studying at school, riding horse, mucking out stables, climbing an apple tree, musing in a park, or herding a hassle of children. Frequently, walking along a busy street, one would witness the lifting of flask to lip by those of all ages. Young boys and young men were least likely to do so, but adolescent and unmarried as well as married females could more frequently be seen quenching their thirsts in public places. Yes, cider also had arrived among the Mongolians. 
     Benghis became the first missionary in ancient history. He took to touring the nearby neighbourhoods and friendly nations to distribute seeds and plant trees. Genghis passed a law that no apple seeds might be thrown away in his entire kingdom. Hundreds of thousands, and then hundreds of millions of Apple seeds accumulated until Benghis needed thousands of cubic metres of space to house all of this abundance. His journeys ranged farther afield. 
     Eventually, by the time he reached the age of 37, he found himself at the very gates of Europe, sowing apple seeds even there in hostile territory. He came to be known as Benghis Appleseed and was respected far and wide across Asia minor and all the way from the Mediterranean up through the Danish lands far to the north in Europe. Apples throve in those northern climates and now many varieties abound throughout the world.