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Here in the Midwest, it’s apple season. I’m on the lookout for some cheap ones so I can make a batch of applesauce.
In Asia, apples are popular too. But watching Asian dramas, I’ve noticed a big difference in how apples are consumed in the East versus the West.
Asians don’t eat the skin.
The first time I noticed this was in Love Now (Netflix, 2012), a faux marriage favorite from my early drama viewing days. The grandmother of the male lead (the forever boyish George Hu) is fond of apples, and they are always served to her peeled and sliced. This means that the skin–with all its fiber and nutrients–is thrown away. Even with my applesauce, I leave the skins on.
So what gives?
My Theory
I’ve been to mainland China a couple of times and was always warned not to eat the skin of any fruit in China because of the yucky stuff (pesticides, manure, dirt) that could still be there. So we could eat watermelon, bananas, and oranges, but not apples, pears or grapes.
Washing the fruit wouldn’t help either because the tap water in China isn’t safe to drink. So even if the fruit was washed thoroughly, the water could deposit things on the skin that might make you sick. Peeling the fruit, however, would eliminate all contaminants.
The only problem with this explanation is that Love Now is a Taiwanese show, and the water in Taiwan is potable. In theory, they could just give the fruit a scrub, and they should be good to go.
A Sign of Caring?
Korean dramas are also full of apple peeling even though Korean water is safe to drink too. In Because This Is My First Life (Netflix, 2017), Jung So-min’s character takes a break from making beef pancakes to peel an apple for a child. In Little Women (Netflix 2022), the evil married couple sits in a hospital room, eating peeled apples and watching election returns.
On the internet there’s disagreement as to what this all means. Some say it’s a sign of caring to peel and cut up an apple for a child or loved one–though the married couple in Little Women is most definitely not a caring one.
Some Brave Souls Munch Away
Others on the internet contend that’s just the way that Asians eat apples. A few also point out that many Asians have no problem munching on an apple as is, as seen in both the Korean (2009, Netflix) and Japanese versions (2005, Viki) of Boys Over Flowers when the male leads do just that.
Finally, there’s Crash Landing Over You (Netflix, 2019), which has it both ways. There are two scenes where cast members are busy peeling. But then in the final episode, our heroine, Yoon Se-ri (Son Ye-jin) runs an apple under the faucet before chomping down.
Go figure!
This is one Asian food tradition I’m taking a pass on, but I still have a question about those perfect spiraling apple peels.
How do they not end up slicing their fingers?