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Bad spelling specimen
Nov. 10th, 2006 03:36 pmI was sceptacle at first, but I have become a believer.
Nov. 10th, 2006
Comparing apples and apples
Nov. 10th, 2006 07:12 pmI've been enjoying some new (to me) apple varieties lately. Honeycrisp® is one. There's a great story about it. It is the apple variety that saved the Minnesota apple industry! You betcha!
I also like Gala and Cameo and Fuji (not really new to me) and another good one, Ambrosia.
Where I grew up there are still a few local orchards. Well, last time I checked. When I was a kid my family used to go to Hilltop Orchards where we would get great unpasteurized cider. And there we bought some New England apples that I don't see here in the Pacific Northwest. Macoun, for example.
Macoun is one of my favorites. I like a really hard, crisp apple, sweet with a bit of sharpness or acidity. Macouns are all that, but unfortunately, they are hard and crisp for only about a month or two in the fall. They don't keep well. That's probably why I don't see them out here.
Back in the 80's, the big three of apples were Red Delicious, Golden Delicious, and Macintosh. In chain grocery stores you didn't see many other varieties. The first apple to challenge the big three was Granny Smith. It's pretty, and I thank it for rocking the world of 80's apple colors, but I don't really like it. I understand it's often picked unripe. Apples, unlike pears, don't improve in flavor once picked.
Some years ago, I noticed Braeburn. It was imported from New Zealand. That still seems like a long, long way to go for an apple. (But hey, Trader Joe's sells frozen broccoli and spinach from China. Eat globally, shit locally!) I liked it because it was the only apple out of (our northern hemisphere) season that was consistently crisp.
More recently (maybe 5 years ago) I went to a farmer's market at Union Square in New York City. There were many orchards represented there, with lots of rare apple varieties I had never tried. One display caught my eye, for the Arkansas Black. Over the small box of apples, the sign written in magic marker on corrugated cardboard said "Hard as cement!" Well! I like a hard apple, and that was no disappointment! Alas, I haven't seen it for sale since then.
I went to an apple tasting this year at a local nursery. It was a big deal, hundreds of people. I got to taste a whole raft of new apple varieties. I can't exactly remember a one of them. Okay, I do remember Liberty, because I had known for years that it comes from a tree bred to be resistant to apple diseases. It actually tasted quite good, and apparently it has a future as an organically grown variety.
The other night I bought a Red Delicious. My big complaint about Red Delicious, the apple everyone loves to hate, is that it's often mealy. I thought maybe since I now live so close to the apple growers of Washington State I might get one picked at the peak of ripeness and handled gently on the short trip to my Oregon grocery store. Nope. It was gross. Though I will say it was really, really red!
Read this article on apple varieties and you'll know why.
Do you like apples?
I also like Gala and Cameo and Fuji (not really new to me) and another good one, Ambrosia.
Where I grew up there are still a few local orchards. Well, last time I checked. When I was a kid my family used to go to Hilltop Orchards where we would get great unpasteurized cider. And there we bought some New England apples that I don't see here in the Pacific Northwest. Macoun, for example.
Macoun is one of my favorites. I like a really hard, crisp apple, sweet with a bit of sharpness or acidity. Macouns are all that, but unfortunately, they are hard and crisp for only about a month or two in the fall. They don't keep well. That's probably why I don't see them out here.
Back in the 80's, the big three of apples were Red Delicious, Golden Delicious, and Macintosh. In chain grocery stores you didn't see many other varieties. The first apple to challenge the big three was Granny Smith. It's pretty, and I thank it for rocking the world of 80's apple colors, but I don't really like it. I understand it's often picked unripe. Apples, unlike pears, don't improve in flavor once picked.
Some years ago, I noticed Braeburn. It was imported from New Zealand. That still seems like a long, long way to go for an apple. (But hey, Trader Joe's sells frozen broccoli and spinach from China. Eat globally, shit locally!) I liked it because it was the only apple out of (our northern hemisphere) season that was consistently crisp.
More recently (maybe 5 years ago) I went to a farmer's market at Union Square in New York City. There were many orchards represented there, with lots of rare apple varieties I had never tried. One display caught my eye, for the Arkansas Black. Over the small box of apples, the sign written in magic marker on corrugated cardboard said "Hard as cement!" Well! I like a hard apple, and that was no disappointment! Alas, I haven't seen it for sale since then.
I went to an apple tasting this year at a local nursery. It was a big deal, hundreds of people. I got to taste a whole raft of new apple varieties. I can't exactly remember a one of them. Okay, I do remember Liberty, because I had known for years that it comes from a tree bred to be resistant to apple diseases. It actually tasted quite good, and apparently it has a future as an organically grown variety.
The other night I bought a Red Delicious. My big complaint about Red Delicious, the apple everyone loves to hate, is that it's often mealy. I thought maybe since I now live so close to the apple growers of Washington State I might get one picked at the peak of ripeness and handled gently on the short trip to my Oregon grocery store. Nope. It was gross. Though I will say it was really, really red!
Read this article on apple varieties and you'll know why.
Do you like apples?