The red delicious apple…
…is considered by Sarah Yager of the Atlantic to be an abomination, bred for looks to the exclusion of the taste that gave it its name.
Well, I don’t know. Although I’ve sung my paean to the Jazz apple—expensive, hard to find, and stupendous in taste—and I think the last time I bought a Delicious apple (as opposed to a delicious apple) was a few decades ago, is the Delicious really so bad?
No. In fact, when picked off a tree (the last time I ate one), they prove quite worthy of their name.
The apple variety I dislike most are McIntosh, because they invariably tend to be mushy, whereas Delicious have at least a chance for crispness. But even the dread Macs are very good when picked in an orchard and eaten immediately. I’ve been to orchards that grow nothing but Macs and Delicious, and both types are so tasty that everyone scarfs down tons of them before they even go into the bag.
The thing those vaieties both lack is shelf life, a trait at which the Jazz shines bright. I’ve also had some good experiences with something even newer called the Envy, which is hard to find but almost invariably (I had one bad experience) tasty and crisp.
Just now, doing a little research, I discovered that the Jazz and the Envy are actually very closely related to each other (the Envy has “the same parentage as the Jazz apple, from the same producer”) although they look and taste quite different to me. Both are New Zealand-bred crosses between the Royal Gala and Braeburn varieties.
Envy tastes to me like a Delicious should taste, crisp and sweet. Look for the ones with the little flecks on the skin, the more the better. Jazz has a far more complex taste, with many overtones of sweet and tart and everything in-between to go with its intense crunch. To me, it’s the perfect apple.
You may wonder why I’m talking about red apples when my symbol is the green Granny Smith. Grannies have a lovely and unique color, and are fine for hiding half of one’s face. They’re not bad eating, either—but give me a Jazz any day.
When we go to the Great Smokey Mtns. of western N. Carolina twice a year we get Yates Apples and Arkansas Blacks.But, I still like a real good. freshly picked Delicious best.
My favorite is the Winesap, still too early in the season for them. Honeycrisp is a close second.
Lately I have been partial to the Gala apple. Seems to me to have great flavors. Used to be a fan of Golden Delicious apples.
My favorite is a mixture of various cooking apples (leaving out the strictly eating apples) to make apple sauce.
I usually make a huge batch each fall; taking about 1/4 aside to add cooked rhubarb to, and another 1/4 to added some cooked cranberries too. Both of these 1/4 batches will need to be put through a food mill to get the tough skins of the cranberries and strings of rhubarb out of the mixture; resulting in a smooth and tasty sauce.
The remaining 1/2 batch I usually leave “rustic” style by not putting it through a food mill; apple peels and cores are removed before cooking though.
All very tasty!
I don’t recall ever having a Jazz or Envy – So, I will keep my eyes open for them next time.
If you haven’t already try a Honey Crisp.
I use mostly Galas for eating raw, but I like Braeburns for cooking. Transparents are early apples that don’t keep well, but are great for applesauce.
Apples have interesting genetics, seems they can easily be morphed into a new type. Dogs too possess this genetic flexability ( all these breeds started with the basic mongrel that you can see when they show video from 3rd world cities, they are the free range dogs you see in the background.
I am amazed that they often refer to Granny Smith
(which I like as a snack) as a cooking apple.
Good Lord, I have never been able to achieve any softness whatsoever cooking this apple, to me it ends up being akin to a raw potato placed in cinnamon & sugar. Not surprisingly commercial bakeries seem to use it in pies, since they don t cook down you don t need as much apple in that pie! (Sigh) Guess that is why I end up always having to bake my own pies.
I use & love the Cortland for this.
Hey kiddo, an interesting topic for a New Yawker.
Here in the Midwest lake states of course, many of us grew up with grandma’s apple trees in the backfield, or years later we spent time riding motorcycles through the winding blacktop roads of orchard country, or yet later doing the domestic weekend cider and doughnut thing at the “old cider mill”; either on married “dates” or with the kids in tow.
I guess we figure apples are especially ours. But a moment’s reflection reminds us that New York state has, or had, some pretty significant nurseries specializing in the sale of apple varieties, especially the so-called antique apples, which always fascinated me.
It’s a great thing while wandering the fall woods with shotgun or rifle – exploring and trying to get pleasantly “lost” – to come unexpectedly into a small clearing with a couple of bedraggled old apple trees marking where once a cabin stood. Off to the side of the crumbling foundation, and the rusted-through oil cans, and half buried dish shards, the trees still stand bearing in the long grass.
What kind of apples they might be is impossible for someone like me to say. The deer must like them; they often enough bed under the trees and leave obvious signs they have rested and eaten there.
Sometimes the fruit of the tree is pulpy, sometimes amazingly good. Many times the apples are huge, round, heavy, dark red, and very firm, hanging on the trees even till deer season.
Some of these old varieties were apparently valued for canning or pies, or for an extended season and storage, more than for eating out of hand. But they taste pretty good to a woods wanderer.
I think there is some value to nearly all of them. Even the despised Yellow Transparent.
I’ve tried to replicate some of these small orchards in our own woods clearings, with purchases of supposed old varieties said to be adapted to the north country. And one thing I learned the hard way, is that apple trees are not all that easy to grow outside of a suburban backyard. Rabbits, mice, deer, tent caterpillars, and even elk, mean that when it comes to wildlife plantings, or even cottage yard plantings, you not only have to diligently spray, water and fence, you have to fence strongly and high.
I sometimes wonder how any feral apple saplings ever manage to survive to achieve full size, given the number of active predators they face. Any trunk left bare while it is less than 5 inches in diameter will have the bark eaten from it by mice or rabbits in the winter, or rubbed off by bucks in the fall. If that does not kill the tree outright, it weakens and slowly kills it, or at best sets it back years in development.
I suppose the old-timers all kept dogs, and just shot anything that annoyed them in season or out, as a means of dealing with it. Better to feed your children than the deer.
Sorry to have to say this, Neo, but that “give me a Jazz” line…well, it brings up highly inappropriate thoughts, shall we say.
Pink Lady
@ Vegasguy ^5
Honeycrisp apples are just too too good.
Wasn’t red the color of poison used to keep animals from eating fruits and vegetables.
Ymarsakar,
The general rule for eating colored berries or fruits that I learned is:
Black always [edible], red sometimes, white never.
Some thoughts on apples, perhaps my favorite fruit.
To this day, I vividly remember the absolutely fantastic taste of a Red Delicious apple my folks bought for me from a New England road side stand in the country when I was around six, which would have made it about 1954. It was sweet, juicy, crisp and of a flavor that no store bought Red delicious apple of today even faintly approaches. Perhaps its nostalgia but I can’t recall ever having a better tasting apple. Over the years though, I thought I detected a gradual decline in the quality of Reds being sold in grocery stores, until by the 80’s they were consistently flavorless, mushy and had little juice.
Now I know as most do that there is a great difference between a fruit picked at its peak of ripeness from an orchard and a store bought fruit but consider this…
If memory serves, somewhere in the very early 1980’s the Gala was first imported into this country from New Zealand. It was one of the very first new varieties and I went crazy over it because it was so reminiscent of my memory of that Red Delicious apple from that road side stand. I greatly enjoyed those Galas and also enjoyed the Braeburns that came along next. After a few years, I noticed that the Galas no longer had the New Zealand label but instead had a Washington State label and the flavor and juiciness were decidedly less…
I have no idea what the issue is but there’s no doubt in my mind that something domestically is responsible for the decline in the quality of our apples. Logically, it can’t be a matter of being picked too early given that the New Zealand apples had so much farther to travel. After a few years, I noticed that the Wash. State apples got a bit tastier but they still are no match for those early Galas.
I haven’t had the Jazz variety yet (somehow I’ve missed it) but am now looking forward to giving it a try, thanks neo.
A white berry would be pretty insane.
Women were supposed to have better taste detection to differentiate between ripe and unripe, and poisonous and nonpoisonous via distinguishing one species of fruit from another via taste. Too bad most of that ended up eating chocolate in modern humanity.
Kids were also designed to be overcome by extremely strong bitter flavors or not so cooked vegetables, because those tended to be acid/base poisons first and foremost. Stop putting the pinecone in your mouth kid, it’s not good for you, none of the ancestors had to say that. Not many things back then were smooth and silky, and the ones that were, tasted weird.
Beer is not liked by the young for that bitter taste, since it was in the old days another form of poison.
From my NE childhood, my favorites were Macs and Ida Reds. Wait a minute- not THOSE Ida Reds. I meant THESE Idareds. 🙂 Cortlands were also good.
As we got our apples from local orchards, the mealy aspect of Macs that Neo mentions wasn’t much of a problem. In my childhood and young adulthood, you could pick up a half bushel of apples from the orchards for a buck or two. So never any apple rationing!
I will purchase Delicious apples nowadays if they can be purchased for 50-70 cents a pound. Add some cinnamon and turn them into applesauce w a minute or two in the pressure cooker.
Fuji and Honeycrisp for eating an apple by itself, but Grannie Smith for baking, such as apple pancakes and this scrumptious apple spice cake: http://www.marthastewart.com/351254/apple-spice-cake
I love apple picking in the fall!
There is a nearby 40+ acre orchard with a bewildering number of varieties that has apples coming ripe from late August to mid October. We visit the orchard almost every Sunday to taste what is ripe and to eat a crusty fritter. But from all the varieties we have tried the honey crisp is our favorite. Tomorrow I ask the owner about jazz and envy and probably discover he grows them.
Around 25 years ago I traveled to Oregon and bought some Red Delicious at a roadside stand. They had a snap when bit into, and were delicious and sweet. I have not had one so good since. I live in the lower Midwest and apples picked from the tree here are barely crisp. I think the location grown makes a big difference.
The real question is, why hide behind a Granny Smith? Perhaps a substitute for hiding behind granny’s apron.
I agree with your friend, the Delicious is not a good apple for anything other than eating immediately after picking. Their flavor and crunchiness is OK but nothing special.
My choice is the Macoun, very popular here in Connecticut, where I think you also live. There are local orchards all over our state where you can find wonderful apples: Roger’s Orchards and Lyman Orchards, just to name two.
Empire, Macoun, Honey Crisp.
This thread is making me feel better about the premature arrival of fall in these here parts.
Has anyone ever had a good “Rome” apple? Those I’ve tasted have always been mushy. I must say I prefer the “Fuji” and “Pinata” varieties and “Ambrosia” is pretty tasty as well. I once could find “Winter Banana” apples (actually had a banana-like flavor) but haven’t seen one in ages.
There’s also a variety called “opal” that doesn’t oxidize withing minutes of cutting it, so you can put half in the fridge for later w/out it turning brown.
My favorite for eating out of hand and for baking is the Jonathan Apple. It has just the right amount of tartness.
From the internet (so it must be true, of course):
–
“About 2,500 known varieties of apples are grown in the United States. More than 7,500 are grown worldwide. Nearly 100 varieties are grown commercially in the United States, but 15 varieties accounted for over 90% of 1999 production…”
–
When I think of an apple it is a Red Delicious. Blame it on my mother!
I’m not a gourmand in any sense, but since I cashier at Wal-Mart, I’ve had to memorize the codes.
I’m amazed at how many different types of apple there are.
Fuji and Gala are most sold by volume. Pink Lady, Red Delicious.
Golden Crisp are the most raved about, but also the most expensive.
I’m with the Honeycrisp eaters. Nothing beats a fresh farmer’s market Honeycrisp for pure apple tastiness.
The Store Where I Work recently began carrying Envy and Diva apples. Both are from New Zealand, and as I have a personal rule about only buying USA grown produce I have not tried them. But they sell like crazy, so they must be worth eating.
I’ve been eating the Ambrosia variety as my apple of choice lately. When they are out of season the New Zealand Envy fills the void….. MMMM….MMMM…..MMMMM
I am a mere biologist but two of my room mates in college (Washington State University) studied Pomology and so I picked-up some information about apple culture just from being around them.
It seems that for the most part, seeds play no role in the process anymore. A type of apple is propagated by grafts cut from one tree and applied to another. There is no such thing as a Red Delicious apple tree–just a root stock with that kind of graft applied to it. The upshot is that you can’t really do breeding since all of the grafts are clones.
So how come these apples don’t taste as good as they used to? Basically, it is due to genetic drift. Controlled atmosphere storage gives apples essentially unlimited storage life nowadays.
So what do I eat? From the store, never Red Delicious. Jazz, Fuji, and Royal Gala. Some years ago there was a great variety called Criterion but it seems to have gone away. From local orchards here in Eastern Mass, the Red Delicious are pretty good but the Jonagold are amazing as are many of the older varieties.
I first ate an Envy on a visit to New Zealand. It’s a wonderful apple. Our grocery recently had some, the first I had seen in the U.S. They’re about twice as expensive as domestic apples, but IMO, they’re worth the extra coin.
I’ll be on the lookout for Jazz apples now.
A couple of things about New Zealand fruit. (Their Kiwis are far better than any from the U.S. or Chile, too.) The soil is volcanic, which means it has more nutrients and holds them better than non-volcanic soils. Also, Kiwi farmers are fastidious in tending their land and crops. Their major natural resource is agriculture. They have to excel to survive.
Fuji, Braeburn
The Granny Smith looks pretty, but I can’t eat it. It’s so sharply acidic that it hurts the inside of my mouth.
I recently bought a bag of Paula Reds, a variety I had never heard of. Pretty good. I thought it tasted like a Mac, and lo and behold, Wiki says it is a Mac mutation.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paula_Red
I can honestly say, I never met an apple I didn’t like.
May I recommend “Ginger Gold”? They ripen in the middle of July here in WNC – the earliest variety of all.
Try Johnathans… great apple, sweet and sour (more than granny smiths), and a tremendously delicious apple..
love crab apples too, but can seldom find any
(other than what i picked as a yute)
I think we can all agree that The Atlantic magazine is insane.
neo – Here are some suggestions from when the Red Delicious has been spoiled topic last came up, almost four years ago.
If I were to do the post over again, I would probably say that part of my liking for Winesaps may have to do with childhood memories of helping raise apples.
FWIW, Washington State has some new varieties that they claim taste great, and are better suited to the climate in eastern Washington. They should be available in a few years
Funny … you remind me of something. Few years ago I was driving a back road to the hunting property up in the hills, when I saw a small, leafless, apple tree on the far and raised side of a roadside ditch; a little tree which had hundreds of almost golf-ball sized apples hanging from it. It being a cool sunny day with a blue sky backdrop, they looked like little red Christmas ornaments hanging there.
My cousin and I pulled over to the shoulder, climbed down into and up the far side of the ditch and proceeded to strip the tree, throwing apples by the hats-full back into the bed of the pick-up.
Turns out, speaking of Christmas, that they were about the size of those little fake apples you see on Christmas wreaths. I hadn’t known, or had forgotten, that there were apparently at one time, long ago, crab apples that were more than the marble or pea sized side-effects that grew from purely decorative lawn trees.
Got a quart jar, and I found that about 7 to 9 would fit in. I thought I might preserve some by filling the rest of the jar with cheap whiskey. But apparently that is not really how canning is done. Wasted 2 fifths of perfectly good rot gut.
Anyway, found more of them growing just off a nearby surface road and filled shopping bags full of them figuring I’d scatter them on the hillsides and then just wait a couple of years for the herds of deer, and flocks of grouse that would be attracted to the fruit of full grown trees. Which I could then of course pick off at my leisure. The deer and grouse that is, not the apples.
Never happened. The apple scattering did, but nothing resulted from it.
But I did manage to track down the original source which was a tree a mile or so away in a small and sparse orchard of an acre or two just off the side yard of an old farm house. The elderly lady living there, the great granddaughter of the township settlers as I recall – and after asking me which camp we were from – told me I could go into the fenced in area in which cattle happened to be grazing, and have all the large crab apples I liked, for whatever purpose I liked.
Since there was a large bull snorting around in that bit of orchard/pasture, I figured I’d just collect what I needed back at the roadside.
200 plus miles south, I now have a few offspring grown from these apple seeds in my home yard. But the apples are not as large as the originals and the trees are really susceptible to cedar apple rust.
The old Briley farm appears (I can’t say for sure) to have changed hands in some manner since then, and the county took down the trees that had been growing along the roadside.
Guess that’s how it goes. Glad I gave it a shot though.
I also give more thought to apples than most people seem to – for quite a long time, my favorites were Empire (the flavor of which was nearly identical to the old apple tree in the backyard of my childhood home in the Poconos) and Honeycrisp. But then I tried a Sweetango apple (purchased at a local Wegman’s) and no apple I’ve ever eaten can compare. It’s a very recently developed varietal, and is grown in the United States. I recommend that anyone who sees them buy them without hesitation, despite the rather exorbitant cost.
Wiki has some details:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SweeTango
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