Apple

we once had a cat that, instead of catching birds and rodents and leaving their bodybits on the doorstep, brought us apples from the tree in the back yard. this is no lie. she would bite into the apple carefully, puncturing the skin so that she could carry the apple, but not so hard that she ever actually took what you could call a bite out of it. then she'd come trotting around the corner of the house, up to the kitchen door, where she would go ptooie and spit/drop the apple on the doormat. alas, this cat is no longer with us, and i doubt we'll ever find another who'll bring us fruit instead of dead animals.

Most scholars (those who've given any thought to the matter) agree that it was not an apple. Pomegranate and apricot are the chief candidates; of course it's folly to think it's any kind of fruit that you can grow and eat at will.

Oh I likes apples just plain fine
I"ll eat'em up most any ol' time
I likes'em baked, boiled or stewed
But I likes'em best when they're brewed
Now whiskey's fine and poitin's dandy
but I likes a sip o' that apple brandy
it goes down like water and comes up like fire
one wee sip and I'll retire
to dream my life away

The apple is used frequently as a meta object. Kids learn mathematics by counting apples because an apple is easy to abstract into nothing, so only the mathematics are remaining. Computer interfaces sometimes use a red ball or circle to show that there is an object, and this stems clearly from the apple. – Apart from the abstraction, an apple can also be a whole world, for example when you are a worm. An apple is also round like a globe, creatures live on the surface and inside it. It's nothing, it's a house, it's a planet, and it can be portrayed by just a red circle if there is the need to do so.

Do you remember that old schoolgirl game (I call it this even though I was never a schoolgirl) that involved twisting the apple by its stem to see who you would fall in love with? My question is: if you eat more apples, does that give you more chances of finding true love? Or does your soulmate change with each new fruit?

In spring the trees are smothered with apple blossom, pink and frothy and fragrant. The air is dripping with the fragrance, full of promise. As Autumn draws near the apples appear, red globes, sweet and juicy, waiting to fall into your hand.

why dont we have apple flavour crisps? i think it would be nice. they would be refreshing. such a taste would bring a melancholy break to the flood of barbeque, beefy and salt and vinegars out there. long reign the apple!!!!!

Why is the biblical »forbidden fruit« always shown as an apple? I would hope that the Garden would have much more interesting things, like mangoes and kumquats and starfruits and stuff like that. And the Fruit of Knowledge and Evil rolled into one should really be a bit spiffier that even those miraculous bits of creative omnipotence....

Apple. A key prop from the myth that women are responsible for all the suffering in the world. The computer company that roused my imagination and then broke my heart. I think of these before I think of the fruit itself.

Delicious. Winesap. Northern Spy. Granny Smith.

Apples. Don't get me started.

Maybe, thought Frank Leigh Dearie, the forbidden fruit is not an apple but a rockmelon.