THEY ARE still on supermarket shelves, Cortland apples. Late apples, they grow all the way through April. Cut them in half and they seem like ster-appels. The flesh stays white longer than in other apples, making them perfectly presentable for salad recipes. In Holland they need extra sunlight before consumption, less they get tart; in America that issue was taken care of by cultivators. Hence the difference in name. In the Dutch Betuwe region they are called ster-appels, in America Cortlands, after the area where they were developed.
Readers around Wijk bij Duurstede in Holland are perking up now. Sterappels and Cortland? A stretch of road N229 that runs past town is called Kortland. As you drive towards the canal, looking right you will see all those apple orchards. A coincidence? Nope.
The Van Cortlandt family originally hailed from Wijk. They emigrated to America, Oloff and his wife Annetje, leaving behind father Steven and mother Fijgje, and they hit it off immediately. The Cortlandts made serious money, their children married up, with Van Rensselaers and Schuylers, son Steven became mayor of New York, twice, (and sired no fewer than 22 children), and before long there was a town with their name, and home became a large manor.
The city of Cortlandt is still there, blooming like an apple tree, and Cortlandt Manor is equally much alive. Cortland apples were conceived there, almost similar to the red ster-appels in the old motherland, but a little more yellow-flamed, and a bit sweeter. American households love them.
