The Unexpected Origin Of Bobbing For Apples

Posted by Almeda Bohannan on Monday, May 6, 2024

Now, there are various traditional ways of gauging the prospects of a potential relationship. The classic flower petal "they love me, they love me not" is just one example. The science of such things is shaky enough to roll right off the table and under the couch, but methods like these indicate that a certain level of superstition has long been connected to such things.

Today, millions around the world know apple bobbing as a bit of holiday fun, a Halloween distraction that also serves as a way for wily adults to encourage children to eat more fruit. It's also taken super seriously by other groups, however. In an October 2015 live event in Japan, Cherry Yoshitake successfully bobbed a total of 37 apples in one minute. This, per Guinness World Records, remains a world record.

Let's put the potentially incredible world of competitive apple bobbing aside, though. The simple act of bobbing one's head into a container of water and apples, then trying to extract the nutritious fruit using only the teeth, is a familiar one. According to History, though, the practice has its unexpected origins in Britain (a well-known home of the apple). There, young women in centuries past would gauge whether a potential partner was right for them by how successful they were at bobbing for the apple they had assigned to that person.

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