▲ Belgium is very famous for its chocolate
People who like football know that it ranks first in the world for many years and is known as the "Red Devil"; Delicious dogs must have tasted it, the chocolate and waffles here... It is Belgium in Europe.
▲ The Grand Place in Brussels, Belgium
Belgium is a small land area, with a land area of only 30,000 square kilometers, which is only 1/3 of the size of Zhejiang Province (about 100,000 square kilometers), and even less than the area of Hainan Island (about 35,400 square kilometers). However, such a "palm country" actually has three languages as official languages, and is also known as the capital of Europe. And its apples can be described as an all-encompassing variety of Europe.
Let's take a look at Belgium in three languages and hundreds of apples.
French, Dutch and German are the three official languages, which are distributed in different parts of Belgium
▲The multi-Chinese words used in scenic signage
For historical reasons, Belgium is an outlier country that crosses the borders of The Romanic and Germanic language families in Western Europe.
In the five southern provinces – Heino, Namur Liège, Wallon Brabant, Luxembourg and Flemings, collectively known as the Walloons, account for about one third of the total population of Belgium, mainly French-speaking areas and populations; The five northern and north-eastern provinces – West Flanders, East Flanders, Flemish Brabant, Antwerp and Limburg – are predominantly Dutch and account for about half of the population; In the eastern region, a small number of people are predominantly German-speaking.
The three official languages, combined with the borders with France, Luxembourg, the Netherlands and Germany, gave Belgium, one of Europe's smallest countries, a head start. Brussels, the capital of Belgium, is considered the center of the world economy and diplomacy, and the European Union, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and many other European international organizations are headquartered in the city. Therefore, Belgium is also known as the "capital of Europe".
Geography and culture have brought together a hundred kinds of apples from Europe
▲ Belgian fruit stalls
As an extremely developed country, Belgium certainly has no shortage of fruit to eat. Supermarkets are very rich in fruit varieties, all year round you can eat fruits from all over the world, such as apples, blueberries, grapes, grapefruit, plums, kiwi fruit and other mainstream fruits, pineapple, banana, passion fruit, pomegranate and other tropical fruits, as well as dates, dried figs, dried apricots and other fruit products.
However, when you come to Belgium, you can only taste the taste of Belgium when you come to Belgium.
▲ Belgians are picking apples
Looking at the distribution of seasonal fruits throughout Belgium, it can be divided into light and high seasons. The peak season is concentrated in summer and autumn, of which autumn fruits are the most abundant; The off-season is winter and spring, and only apples, pears and strawberries are the only local fruits in the whole.
From May to July, sour cherries and sweet cherries are on the market, followed by blackberries, apricots, peaches and grapes. During the Period from August to October, in addition to the fruits of the previous season, more sub-varieties have joined the camp, while melons, figs, curries, plums, and raspberries have also been listed.
▲ Various Belgian apples
Among them, the most worthy of tasting is the three major categories of local apples, plums and cherries, of which apples are the most abundant. According to the data of the Belgian "National Arboretum Foundation", there are more than 100 kinds of apples distributed in Belgium, including many varieties from various countries such as the United Kingdom, Germany, the Netherlands, and France, which can be described as a collection of apples in the whole of Europe.
The following selection of more than 10 kinds of apples produced in Belgium, you are used to eating red Fuji, you must not have eaten!
■Belle Fleur from Brabant
■Bramley’s Seedling
■Short-Hanged
■Essching
■Gravenstein
■Jacques Lebel
■Joseph Musch
■Keiing
■Keuleman
■Marbrée De Watervliet
■Marie Joseph d’Othee
■Reinette Baumann