apple peeler

My much-loved – and much-used – apple peeler/corer/slicer

Until recently, our village of Marnaves had its own boulangerie (bakery) and boulanger (baker), Monsieur Gauben, whose oven was wood-fired. The business had been in his family since 1909 and latterly supplied bread, croissants, chocolatines and other delights to fourteen neighbouring villages. For twelve years prior to the pandemic, we held Baroque music summer schools and one of the treats we gave our students was a picnic in the French countryside. Dessert was always one of Monsieur Gauben’s enormous tarte aux pommes – all the students would gasp in amazement at the grand finale! In the summer holiday period Monsieur Gauben would make quantities of enormous tartes aux pommes to feed gatherings of two hundred or more at local village fêtes. The first time we saw him at work, peeling, coring and slicing infinite numbers of apples effortlessly for his tartes using the wondrous contraption pictured above, we were flabbergasted! I knew I had to get one for myself.

To my surprise, I discovered this ingenious gadget was invented in Americain 1778, by 13-year-old Eli Whitney. The apple was a mainstay of early American self-sufficiency and every family grew apple trees, averagely harvesting about two tons of fruit every year. Unblemished apples would be stored in the cellar, with the rest being made into cider, or preserved by simmering down to apple sauce or by slicing and stringing them up to dry. In 1803 Moses Coates took out the first patent and by 1910 around another 250 apple peelers had been patented.

Two large tartes aux pommes made for one of our student picnics

There is something magical about the way these apple peelers operate. My grandchildren, when aged two and four, loved helping me to operate it, making for a very merry early cookery experience. There are some sharp parts, so constant supervision is necessary, but happily no one has ever got hurt. The top of the apple is pushed onto three spikes to fix it to the rotating rod (my job). Then one grandchild would have the pleasure of winding the handle so the apple advances towards the corer. On the way, a looped blade shaves away a sliver of skin in an enticing ribbon (to be caught and eaten by the other grandchild). In next to no time, the apple is deposited at the other end: cored, peeled and sliced in one seamless coil, like a spring. Magic!