More importantly, golden apples are the only known way of curing zombie villagers of their zombieness. You can’t just feed them the apple – first you’ll need to find a way to weaken them (a potion should do the trick). Once weakened, use an (unenchanted) golden apple on the villager and within a few minutes the poor soul should be back to their old self.
Not interested in any of that? Okay okay. You can eat it. You’ll get four points of hunger restored, and a massive whack of hunger saturation. It’ll also give you absorption and regeneration status effects. That makes golden apples one of the best foods for munching mid-combat.
Golden apples feature in the mythologies of many cultures, including Greece and Ireland. They play a starring role in the Greek myths of Atalanta and Malanion, Paris and the Trojan War, and Hera and the Hesperides. In Irish mythology, they’re part of the silver branch – which is owned by the Irish sea deity and Otherworld guardian Manannán mac Lir.
Golden apples also feature in Richard Wagner’s “Der Ring des Nibelungen”, where they have their own musical theme, in Stravinsky’s ballet “The Firebird”. They’re in loads of different European fairy tales too – where they’re often stolen from a king by a bird.
Fun fact: in many languages, the orange is called a “golden apple”. In Latin, for example, an orange is called a “pomum aurantium”, which translates directly. In Italian, however, golden apples show up as the name for what we call a tomato. The “pomodoro” is a “pomo d'oro” – literally a “golden apple”.
At the time of writing, Minecraft doesn’t have tomatoes or oranges (at least, not without modpacks). So there’s no reason to get confused. Golden apples are golden apples – in all their tasty, shiny, piglin-luring glory. Enjoy them!
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