There’s a strange story about a stranger woman, published in the New York Herald near Christmas of 1886, telling of those who worked the piers and their preparations for Yule. Among these rough characters comes Apple Mary, an apple peddler, and I will recount the newspaper’s telling of her in entirety, introduced by a grizzled old longshoreman:
“Hello! there goes Apple Mary. There’s a character for you. I remember when she was as strong, as neat and as hearty a young woman as ever trod these streets.”The reporter turned as the old fellow spoke and beheld in Mary the most wretched, unkempt and unsightly object that was ever permitted to roam civilization’s streets. She had on four dresses of various materials, as could be distinguished by the many holes in each; an old bonnet adorned her head, stuck with goose, hen and ostrich tips; her bare feet were visible through her shoes, a basket of tainted apples hung on her right arm, while her left hand grasped the strings of a change of head dress. She murmurs “Apples, apples” to every one she meets, but does not seem to care whether they purchase or not.“There’s a character for you,” reiterated the old fellow. “Rumor has it that she was engaged to a young sailor that was drowned at sea. No one ever saw anybody buy an apple of her; no one ever sees any one give her money.”DRESS FROM THE CANAL BOATS.“For years she has trudged about these docks just as you see her now. She notices none, seems to care for no one. Rain or shine she is about here. They say she is a miser and has money. Ever Christmas the wives of the canal boatmen Coenties slip dress the old woman up, but in a week she is back, rags, apples and all, and no one ever knows what became of the new clothes. She has been sent to Ireland, but they cannot keep her. She is not a vagrant, she never begs, and she always supports herself in some way. Is she is asked why she dresses so slovenly her reply invariably is, ‘If I was a fine lady I wouldn’t need to peddle apples.’ Strange Christmases has Mary seen, no doubt. Whatever her history is she keeps it to herself, and I doubt if you can find one along this water front that does not know Apple Mary, and yet not one of them could tell you who she is, where she came from or where she lives. Yes, Christmases put strange gifts in the stockings of all as they journey through life,” soliloquized the old man as he wandered off to try and get work to buy a Christmas turkey.
After this article, and perhaps because of it, Irish apple
peddlers in New York
were, for a while, called Apple Maries.
The term may predate this story, and seems to have been popular throughout the country (here’s a collection of Apple Mary stories: http://www.barrypopik.com/
A poem from 1914 sentimentalized their experience, seeming to borrow from the original Apple Mary story, and reads as follows:
The term may predate this story, and seems to have been popular throughout the country (here’s a collection of Apple Mary stories: http://www.barrypopik.com/
A poem from 1914 sentimentalized their experience, seeming to borrow from the original Apple Mary story, and reads as follows:
“Apples, apples! Please buy apples” –‘Twas many years agoAnd no one here remembersIn Broadway or Park Row,For everything had changed aboutAnd nothing’s quite the same;New York was just a little townWhen Apple Mary came.“Apples, apples! Please buy apples!”Oh the sunshine in the song;All up and down the wharf they knewWhen Mary passed along,Swinging her basket on her arm,So modest like and shy,‘Twas “Laddies, get your pennies out,Apple Mary’s passin’ by.”“Apples, apples! Please buy apples!”North River, Bowling Green;But when the ships came into dock,‘Twas there she would be seen.“She’s lookin’ for her Sailor Jack,”They said when eight bells rang,And when ‘twas frosty ‘long the wharf –Then Apple Mary sang.“Apples, apples! Please buy apples!”No more we hear the cry;A dear old face has vanished;We miss a mild blue eye.No more about the dangerous streetsHer faltering footsteps roam,For a voice down through the skies has called –Poor Apple Mary home.
The phrase was still well-enough known in the 1930s that the
comic strip Mary Worth started off titled Apple Mary, and told of an elderly
apple dealer. When Frank Capra adapted the Damon Runyon story “Made La Gimp”
into the 1933 film “Lady for a Day,” he converted Runyon’s Spanish flower
peddler into Apple Annie, an aging apple peddler.
Apples were one of the original American street foods, and with good
reason – they grew in abundance and required no preparation, so they could
easily be sold from a basket, a barrel, or a pushcart. This may not seem like much of an Irish-American recipe -- apples in a basket? But I feel sure we can spruce it up a little.
One might consider pairing it with cheese. Gala apples are supposed to go quite well with Irish whiskey cheese, although I'm buggered to think how that might be presented as a street food -- one does not simply hand somebody an apple, a hunk of cheese, and a knife and let them fend for themselves.
Another option might be to cut an apple into slices and then top them with a soft cheese -- Ireland makes a number of soft bries, and you're going to want to pair a sweeter apple with this, but once the apple is sliced it should be treated with lemon juice to keep it from immediately turning brown. You might even create a caramelized apple chutney, combine it with brie, and serve the coupling in a paper cup with a plastic spoon.
Likewise, you could consider making an apple coleslaw, with carrot, apple, cabbage, spring onions, and parsley. Or you might simply put a stick in an apple and dip it in boiled brown sugar, an American invention most popular on the Irish holiday of Samhain. Of course, we're not children, so I would suggest experimenting with hot pepper powder and sea salt to give the candy apple a more sophisticated palate.
It would be very shabby chic to dress up in multiple dresses and an old bonnet, load a basket with these paper containers of contemporary apple-based street foods, and wander the docks crying "Apple, apples! Please buy apples!" I might do it myself.
