Herefordshire Pearmain

type: Cooking

synonyms: English Winter Pearmain, Germaine, Great Pearmain, Old English Pearmain, Royal Pearmain, Winter Pearmain

identification: Large, conical with a prominent rib on one face. The skin is dull green maturing to greenish yellow with some russeting. The sun exposed face is flushed with dark brownish red and streaked, maturing to crimson in storage. Prominently marked with abundant russet lenticels. The stalk is medium length, set in a deep, russeted cavity.

characteristics: The flesh is yellowish, tender, crisp and juicy. Sweet with a good balance of briskness. Keeps for two months in cold storage.

uses: Used mostly for cooking.

origins: 1200 UK Pomona Herefordiensis, Thomas Andrew Knight, 1811. "This variety appears to have been extensively cultivated early in the 17th century; and it occurs in Evelyn’s Pomona, and Worlidge, and other writers of that period, under the name of the Winter Pearmain. It appears also to have been cultivated upon the Continent, and to be the Parmam d’Hyver, and “ Pepin Parmain d’Angleterre” oi Knoop’s Pomologie. But it is not found in Du Hamel; and from this circumstance, and from the names given it by Knoop, it may be supposed to be an original English variety. It is an excellent Apple, and equally well calculated for the press or the dessert: but it has almost disappeared in the orchards of Herefordshire; and it was not without considerable difficulty that a proper specimen, for delineation, was procured in the last season.* The specific gravity of its juice is about 1079. In a light soil, and warm situation and season, the colours are more clear and bright, than the plate represents them; whence Philips has called it The fair Pearmain, Tempered like comeliest nymph, with red and white/^ This variety has sometimes been confounded with the Green Pearmain, which it resembles in the greenness of its skin ; but from which it differs in the yellowness of its pulp, in its smaller size, and much greater richness."