The Big Apple Episode

There’s nothing more American than apple pie—or is there? We might
prescribe an apple a day and call our largest city the Big Apple,
but this legendary fruit originally hails from the mountains of
Kazakhstan. This episode, Michael Pollan (something of a legend
himself) tells us how apples become so important on the American
frontier, and what cider (the alcoholic kind) had to do with it. We
talk to apple fan Amy Traverso and apple detective Dan Bussey to
figure out how many thousands of apple varieties used to grow in
America, and why are there only a handful—including the notorious
Red Delicious, which, while red, is far from delicious—in
supermarkets today? All that, plus we get out in the orchard with
Soham Bhatt to learn about the cider renaissance that's sweeping
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