Pippin
Pippin originally meant any apple grown from a “pip” or seed. The name was derived from the French “pépin”, meaning both “pip” and apple. By the 16th century, the term had come to denote a hard, late-ripening, long-keeping apple with an acid flavour.
The first pippins brought over from France to England were cider apples but eating varieties were soon developed.
London Pippin or Five Crown,
was known in Somerset before 1580, and is still grown in Australia.
Golden Pippin,
is a good flavoured, juicy variety, was popular through the 16th and 17th centuries. Later, Ribston Pippin
became popular and from this, the modern Cox’s Orange Pippin was bred. Another good Pippin is Sturmer Pippin,
a very late-ripening hard variety that does well in the southern hemisphere and grown for export in South Africa and Australia.
In America, the name “Pippin” was used for different kinds of apple with the most famous being the purely American variety, Newtown Pippin.
