It's a tasty, crisp eating apple and tart enough to be good for cooking too. But, to tell the truth, I chose it for reasons of nostalgia.
Our first fall in the mountains, Clifford, our neighbor down the hill, gave me an apple to try, saying that it was an old time variety and a good keeping apple.
I tasted it and was impressed. We were planning to plant apple trees come spring and I already had a tentative list of varieties.
"What's the name of this apple?" I asked, and was told that it was a Yarkin Pearl.
Interesting, I thought, Yarkin could be the name of the discoverer or breeder of the apple and Pearl could be because it was so good -- or maybe the name of his daughter. Nice.
This was 1975 - pre-Internet -- and I began to hunt through my nursery catalogues and Rodale gardening books for more information on this pearl of a fruit -- but alas! I could find no Yarkin Pearls.
I intensified my search, checking various orchard-related books out of the library and leafing through back issues of Mother Earth News and Organic Gardening.
1975 was also before I learned the language of my adopted home.
Finally I came across the name York Imperial.
York Imperial . . . Yarkin Pearl.
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