earth-apples

Updated: April 30, 2025

Potatoes were a new thing, nothing mystic, nothing religious; women and children could plant them earth-apples that came from foreign parts, like coffee; fine rich food, but much like swedes and mangolds. Corn was nothing less than bread; corn or no corn meant life or death. Isak walked bareheaded, in Jesu name, a sower. Like a tree-stump with hands to look at, but in his heart like a child.

Knut Hamsun - Growth of the Soil