My favorite part of the Common Ground Fair is preservation pomologist John Bunker’s annual Apple Tasting. You’ve got to get there early to get a seat under the tent. But as the crowd gathers at its edges, a loaves and fishes kind of thing happens: everybody gets at least a sliver of each heirloom variety on offer and a chance to hear their stories told by Maine’s own apple whisperer.

Bunker’s apple joy is contagious. I just joined his cooperative Out on a Limb heirloom apple CSA through which, for $150, I will get a quarter bushel of rare, Maine apples (10 to 12 pounds) sourced from multiple orchards every other week through early November.

Pork and Apple Pie with Cheddar-Sage Crust

This recipe comes from Amy Traverso’s “The Apple Lover’s Cookbook.” She uses both firm-tart (Arkansas Black, Granny Smith, Northern Spy, Rome, Roxbury Russets and Winesap) and firm-sweet (Braeburn, Ginger Gold, Honey Crisp, Jazz or Pink Lady) in this pie and the crust is killer! Even though she uses two whole sticks of butter plus 19 other ingredients, I would not change a thing. This is a special occasion pie deserving of any heirloom culinary apples you happen to get your hands on.

Serves 8 to 10

FOR THE CRUST:

21/2 cups all-purpose flour

2 teaspoons dried sage, finely crumbled

1/2 teaspoon kosher salt

1 cup chilled unsalted butter, cut into small cubes

3 ounces sharp cheddar cheese, finely grated

6 to 8 tablespoons ice water

FOR THE FILLING:

11/2 pounds (about 3 large) firm-sweet apples (such as Braeburn, Honey Crisp, Pink Lady), unpeeled, cored and cut into 1/4-inch thick wedges

11/2 pounds (about 3 large) firm-tart apples (such as Granny Smith, Rome or Winesap), unpeeled, cored and cut into 1/4-inch thick wedges

2 tablespoons vegetable oil

1 small onion, very finely chopped

2 pounds ground pork (preferably 15 to 17 percent fat)

1 tablespoon firmly packed brown sugar

1 teaspoon kosher salt

1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1/2 teaspoon ground ginger

1/2 teaspoon ground cloves

1/2 teaspoon ground allspice

31/2 tablespoons plain breadcrumbs

1 egg blended with 1 tablespoon water

Fresh sage leaves for garnish

To make the crust, whisk together the flour, sage and salt in a medium bowl. Sprinkle the butter over the mixture and use your fingers to rub it in, rubbing your thumb against your fingertips to smear the butter as you go. Do this until the mixture looks like cornmeal with some pea-sized bits of butter remaining. Stir in the cheese with a fork until evenly distributed. Sprinkle 6 tablespoons ice water over the mixture and stir with a fork until the dough begins to come together. If needed, add 1 or 2 tablespoons of ice water (it should not need more than that).

Turn the dough out onto a lightly floured surface and knead 3 times. Gather the dough into a ball, then divide into 2 portions, one slightly bigger than the other. Press each portion into a disk and wrap in plastic wrap. Refrigerate at least 30 minutes.

To make the filling, in a skillet over medium-low heat, cook the apples without any oil, stirring gently until they just begin to soften, 5 to 7 minutes. Transfer to a dish and set aside. Add oil to the pan and increase the heat to medium-high. Add the onion, pork, brown sugar, salt and spices. Cook, using a wooden spoon to break up the meat, until it is lightly browned, about 10 minutes. Let the meat mixture cool for 10 minutes, then transfer to a food processor. Add the breadcrumbs and pulse 5 times until the mixture has the texture of coarse sand. Set aside. NOTE: You can prepare the recipe through this step a day or two before.

Preheat the oven to 425 degrees F.

To prepare the crust, unwrap the larger disk of dough and put it in the center of a large sheet of parchment paper. Cover the dough with a second piece of parchment. Roll out, working from the center, to a 13-inch circle. Peel off the top piece of parchment and transfer the dough to a 9-inch, deep-dish pie plate, preferably glass or ceramic, draping any excess over the edge. Unwrap the smaller disk of dough and roll out as above, this time to an 11-inch circle. Set aside.

Pour the meat mixture into the bottom crust and gently smooth with a spatula. Arrange the cooked apple slices over the meat, pressing down to make the whole construction as smooth and neat as possible, mounding the apples if needed. Peel the top sheet of parchment off the top crust. Transfer, peeled side down, to the pie, then peel off the remaining parchment. Using a sharp knife, make 2 (3-inch) slashes in the crust to allow steam to escape. Fold the edges of the bottom crust up over the top and crimp the edges to seal. Brush the crust with egg wash and decorate with sage leaves. Dab the leaves with a bit more egg wash to keep them from curling and burning.

Bake for 10 minutes, then reduce the heat to 375 degrees F. and bake until the crust is golden brown, 25 to 35 minutes more. Remove from oven and let cool 25 minutes before serving.

The point of the CSA is to provide a market for these old apples, which many growers don’t even bother to harvest for lack of retail interest.

“If we keep these growers happy, we hope that they will take good care of their old trees” and keep the heritage varieties alive for future generations, Bunker explained.

Cultivating biodiversity in any crop is protection from having a monolithic failure of any monocrop by pests and disease. But from a culinary standpoint, cultivating apple biodiversity means that cooks can have a wide variety of apple tastes, textures, tannin levels and times at which the apples ripen.

In all, I’ll get to sample over 20 varieties I could never find in the grocery store and might only see at a farm stand once in a blue moon. I will receive a mix of eating and culinary apples.

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Uh-oh. How do I know how any of these apples will behave in the pan? I went looking for a few rules for fitting apple varieties I don’t know into recipes I do.

Yankee Magazine Food Editor Amy Traverso, author of “The Apple Lover’s Cookbook,” divides all cooking apple types into four categories. Firm-tart ones like Granny Smith, Gravenstein and Ida Red hold their shape when cooked, are best for cakes and pie and benefit recipes that require “a bit of acidity and bright flavor.” Firm-sweet apples like Golden Delicious, Braeburn, Ginger Gold, Honeycrisp and Jonagold work well in savory and sweet dishes that need firm, but sweet fruit. Tender-tart apples like Cortland, Macoun or McIntosh are best for soups and sauces. And lastly, tender-sweet Gala and Fuji apples suit quick-cooking dishes, dessert sauces and especially salads since neither tends to brown very quickly when sliced.

These apples are familiar because they (plus the ubiquitous Red Delicious) are the dozen best-selling in the United States. Traverso offers up a cheat sheet for how 48 more interesting but less common culinary apples (her favorites are the firm-tart Calville Blanc and firm-sweet Pink Lady, both of which are good options for her Pork and Apple Pie with Cheddar-Sage Crust, recipe below), line up in her categories as well.

Of the 123 apple varieties Rowan Jacobsen profiles in his book “Apples of Uncommon Character,” he only enthusiastically recommends about 40 for cooking. He says early summer apples should be eaten as the first raw tastes of apple season; that dessert apples (in the English sense of fruit being served for dessert) should also be eaten straight up; and that the bulk of what he calls keepers, should be taken fresh from the root cellar as a necessary dose of freshness in winter.

I cross-checked Jacobsen’s list with Traverso’s, looking for agreement on heirloom cooking apples and found only a baker’s dozen in common. Both authors agree that Arkansas Black, Ashmead Kernel, Bramley’s Seedling, Calville Blanc, Newtown Pippin, Northern Spy, Rhode Island Greening, Rome, Roxbury Russet and Staymen Winesap apples would make great stand-ins for ordinary firm-tart Granny Smiths in cakes and pies. And they agree that Black Oxfords and Grimes Goldens can be used anywhere a recipe calls for a Braeburn. The Black Twig is the only one they agree upon as a tender-tart apple good for soups and sauces.

Understanding where the rest of the thousands of apples that grow in this region fall into your own recipes requires case-by-case research. The website maintained by Fedco Trees, an outgrowth of Fedco Seeds that is headed by Bunker, serves up an interactive chart (fedcoseeds.com/trees/apple_chart.htm) depicting over 90 types of Maine apples, their flavor profiles, their best culinary uses and their seasonality.

Still, as the saying goes, there is no accounting for personal taste. So as you’re digesting virtual information about a new-to-you apple, take a bite out of the real thing to really understand how it might fit into your own favorite apple recipes moving forward.

Christine Burns Rudalevige is a food writer, a recipe developer and tester, and a cooking teacher in Brunswick. Contact her at: cburn1227@gmail.com.

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