By Johanna Klaiman—
Snap
The skin gives way beneath your teeth, flavor tickles the tongue, and juice spills onto increasingly sticky fingers.
Apples are so familiar that it is easy to forget just how strange and storied they are.
They have been forbidden fruit, symbols of love, offerings to gods, and the basis of New York City’s nickname. In Norse mythology, apples were associated with Iðunn, who gave the fruit to the gods so they could retain their youth. In ancient Greece, the apple was sacred to Aphrodite, and tossing an apple to someone was a declaration of love, with catching it symbolizing acceptance. In China, apples have long symbolized peace. There is Johnny Appleseed, the apple on the teacher’s desk, “an apple a day,” and the bitten fruit that is one of the most recognizable logos in the world.
And now, as October settles over San Francisco, the apple’s story continues on farmers’ market tables in the Castro.
While the leaves may never truly change color here, apples provide their own autumnal shades. The market offers a canvas of deep reds, pale yellows, bright greens, and every shade in between. The speckles, ombres, and sunsets fade across the fruit.
At the Castro Farmers’ Market, Allard Farms, Fifth Crow Farm, Ken’s Top Notch, and Orozco Farm bring a variety of apples as the season gets underway. There are apples for eating out of hand immediately, apples destined for pies, and apples worth trying simply because you’ve never seen them before.
For eating fresh, look for varieties such as Honeycrisp and Fuji. Granny Smith and Pink Lady are suited to baking as their acidity and structure help them hold their own against sugar, butter, and heat. And, if you want to wander beyond the familiar, Mutsu and Braeburn are worth seeking out.
But apples don’t only appear on San Francisco tables as food. They have become part of the city’s cultural landscape.
When San Francisco’s first farmers’ market opened at Market and Duboce in 1943, apples were reportedly sold out before the market even opened. More than 80 years later, apples are still arriving at San Francisco markets.
At the Fillmore, the legendary concert venue, a bucket of apples sits for visitors to take for free, a tradition begun by Bill Graham in the 1960s. Why Graham began the tradition remains part of the fruit’s mythology. And, at the Castro Farmers’ Market, a venue surrounded by San Francisco history, there are apples arriving each week alongside farmers, neighbors, and stories that make the market part of the city’s living history.
In a market and neighborhood where history and change sit so visibly alongside one another, choice can often feel complicated. But there is something wonderfully uncomplicated about standing at a farmers’ market table and choosing an apple.
Red or green. Sweet or tart. Familiar or unfamiliar. One for the walk home, a bag for the kitchen, a few for the pie.
The table welcomes all kinds of shoppers: those who know exactly what they want, those ready to ask for a flavor profile, and those who simply like that particular shade of red. There’s no wrong choice. And there is always next week.
You might bite into the one you chose and decide it was exactly right. Or you might return next week, apple in mind, and tell the farmer, “I liked this one. Is there something a little sweeter?” The farmer, after all, is best equipped to help you find it, pointing you toward something new while the familiar remains within reach.
It feels almost innate. An apple in front of you, and a hand reaching toward it.
Before we knew the stories of Iðunn or Aphrodite, before apples became symbols and logos and idioms, someone was simply reaching for one.
Perhaps that is part of the apple’s enduring appeal. For all the meanings we have given it over the centuries, the apple remains the same and remarkable in the hand.
It can be mythology, technology, temptation, romance, and folklore. But it can also just be an apple: bright in your hand and crisp between your teeth.
This October, stop by the Castro Farmers’ Market for a bag of apples. Choose one for yourself and add your visit to the fruit’s storied history.
Johanna Klaiman is the Social Media Specialist at the Pacific Coast Farmers’ Market Association.
Farmer’s Market Finds
Published on October 8, 2026
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