Reprinted from Wilson, P.J. 2004. Edward Bunyard and the anatomy of style. Newsletter of the RoyalHorticultural Society Fruit Group 24: 5. February 2004.

 A curiosity of popular writing about fruit in the early 20th century was that it was often interspersed with gratuitous and immoderate social commentary. While slightly shocking to the contemporary ear, such commentary evokes a forthright and picturesque age.

 Who was Edward Bunyard?

 Edward Bunyard was a nurseryman, fruit connoisseur and enthusiast of great influence in the early part of the twentieth century. He set out his preferences as to variety, particularly of apples, in his book 'The anatomy of dessert; with a few notes on wine' towards the end of his career in 1933.

 The book is the product of immense and discriminating experience and is a classic of its type, written in what has been called a 'lyrical' style. In this article I draw attention to an aspect of the work which is seldom commented on: the interspersing of the technical content of the book with opinionated asides. I mention them for your entertainment: it would be wrong to judge them, or to allow them to detract from the book's technical merits.

 Quotations from Bunyard’s book ‘The anatomy of dessert’

 At the start of the book, Bunyard sets modesty firmly aside: 'There may be a need for a book of the dessert such as this, but I write it under disadvantages which no ... scribe has faced since the time of Moses. I have no-one to copy'. Such a position does not result, however, in a lofty tolerance of lesser mortals. If anything, Bunyard prides himself on his capacity for vitriol: 'In dessert apples ... the most esteemed sorts have a good proportion of acid ... the merely sweet being nauseous as in human-kind'.

 This preference for acidity may have something to do with machismo. Late in the book Bunyard refers to 'Blenheim Orange, Orleans Reinette and all this masculine group...'. In fact, anyone benighted (or perhaps effeminate) enough not to like Blenheim Orange is an object of scorn: 'The man who cannot appreciate a Blenheim has not come to years of gustatory discretion; he probably drinks sparkling Muscatelle.'

 Nor does Bunyard mince his words on the question of class. He likes James Grieve, one of the few varieties resulting from the marriage of a cooking and a dessert apple which is of dessert quality. Nevertheless: 'One feels that like some of the recently ennobled we know of, it is a near thing, and untoward circumstances such as cold and sunless summer reveal the humbler origin'.

 Bunyard also takes a position on xenophobia, at least to the extent of having a dig at the United States: 'The variety 'American Mother' ... is one of the few American varieties of quality which thrive in this country and one of the few which are worth eating. It is evident that each nation has the fruit it deserves and a long period of civilisation and culture has to be passed through before Pomona considers us worthy of her higher gifts.'

 Bunyard was not alone

 From a distance of 80 years Bunyard's pronouncements, taken at face value, are slightly shocking, and it seems bizarre to us that an author writing on a technical subject should add such gratuitous and immoderate social commentary. However, this was not unusual. For example, Morton Shand, another noted connoisseur and contemporary of Bunyard's, wrote in his The Book of Food in 1927: 'The French have poor taste in apples, liking them merely soft and sweet'.

 Conclusion

 Bunyard's style was very much the style of the time, made particularly memorable by the 'good proportion of acid' in his turn of phrase. It is difficult now to discern the precise effect his asides were intended to have, and actually had, on his readers. No doubt the more provocative of them were amusing by the standards of the day. We should be grateful for them, as much as we are for Bunyard's technical writing, for so graphically evoking a forthright and picturesque age.

Reference

Bunyard, E.A. (1933). The Anatomy of Dessert; with a few notes on wine. Chatto & Windus, London.