A popular place to take visitors in Shenandoah County is the Johnny Appleseed Restaurant in New Market. The goofy statue at the door makes it memorable, and the country-style food is decent to excellent depending on what you order. (The prime rib is especially tasty but they only serve it on Saturday night.)Johnny Appleseed Restaurant is within view of I-81 but the turn off 211 is tricky. You have to swing wide at the light and enter the driveway between the mini-mart and the gift shop.
The outdoor statue has been refurbished and will speak to you if you push a button. Indoors at the hotel lobby stands a more dignified version.
There's no evidence that the real Johnny visited our area, but apples are raised here so I guess that inspired the theme of the restaurant.
There's a very different take on Johnny Appleseed in a book whose title will hopefully come to me soon. That book takes the perspective that plants may be using humans to propagate themselves across the planet, rather than the other way around. Apples are one of the examples explored in the book, and the author's take on Johnny Appleseed is that what he was actually spreading was a means to satisfy the human taste for both sweetness and alcohol(!), since cider was a common, easy way to both preserve apples and to make hard cider.
ReplyDeleteThe link in popular American culture between apples and good health ("an apple a day keeps the doctor away") was actually invented by the temperance movement, intended to diminish the link between apples and hard cider.
There's more to the story of John Chapman's life that a bit unsettling, too, like a creepy midlife marriage to a young girl. But, that's another story.
Okay, I still don't know the name of the book. I'm sure it'll come to me eventually.
--pvillepeg
It never did come to me -- is that a sign of advancing senility? But, I finally found the book on my bookshelf:
ReplyDelete"Botany of Desire" by Michael Pollan
A great read, with some unusual and stimulating ideas.
It's silly, I guess, to quibble with the pop-history view of Johnny Appleseed. But, the truth is way more interesting.
pvillepeg