I went to an apple orchard in Ellijay, Georgia last weekend. I will go to other orchards in Indiana later this week.
The difference in flavor, texture, and general yumminess between fresh orchard apples and the mealy, tasteless so-called Delicious (either red or yellow) apples bought around Christmastime at a grocery store is astounding. One can also get varieties at orchards that are unheard of in grocery stores.
Some of my favorite varieties are Winesap, Grimes Golden, King David, Cortland, and MacIntosh. The new upstarts such as Gala, Mutsu, and Honeycrisp are good too. Even Red and Golden delicious are good from the orchard, but they lose flavor quickly. Overall, I’d have to say that Winesaps are the best.
If you’ve never been to an apple orchard to get apples, you really need to do so before you kick the bucket.
We go apple picking every year, and buy apples at an orchard. I agree – they’re far more flavorful there than at the supermarket. Red delicious are particularly abysmal; they have no flavor, and are popular mostly because they’re the only thing available in most places and they keep forever.
I’m partial for Macintosh (only if you pick it yourself), Mcoun, and Cortland.
Why would anyone eat red Delicious ever? Might as well eat styrofoam.
I have a few apple trees at my summer cabin. The McIntosh are perfect right now, they are so juicy that you are almost drinking them instead of eating them. They keep in the fridge till Christmas, although in a month they will start to get pretty soft. I made some awesome applesauce from the Transparent apples that were ready a month ago and in a few more weeks the Spartans will be ripe, they are my favorite eating apple.
Aw, no love for either red or yellow Delicious? Living in western Washington my years have been full of both, and if picked at the right time and eaten fresh, not after storage, they are, well, delicious!
I have yet to meet an apple I didn’t like, but the smell and taste of a freshly picked Delicious, either color, is heaven. YMMV
There is some regionalism in apple varieties. The Sebastopol area (in Sonoma County, California) is best known for the Gravenstein, a summer apple with excellent flavor. I don’t know of any other place in the country where many Gravensteins are grown. On the other hand, we don’t see many MacIntoshes in the Bay Area. I know they’re a favorite on the east coast, but they don’t seem to do well here.
Pink Lady is my favorite of the new varieties. It’s a late-season apple, and hasn’t started showing up in markets yet. When they do, I will probably take a trip to Sebastopol to get some.
Gravenstein are common across Canada, probably because of the early maturity. We cut an old one down (it has suckered from the root and is making fruit again now) and there are a couple of overgrown trees on my neighbour’s property in BC. They don’t keep well, so I’d consider them a cooking apple, not an eating apple. I never seem to pick them soon enough and when they are left too long on the tree the fruit splits/bursts. The wasps enjoy the rotting apples, they swarm the fermenting fruit. The sugar content must be fairly high, are they used for cider in Sonoma?
They use them for fresh eating, cooking, juice and applesauce. It’s true that they don’t keep well, but the buying public seems to be able to eat them fast enough to stay ahead of spoilage. Also, Gravensteins aren’t very hard when they’re fully ripe, so when they’re used for cooking it’s better to use ones a little on the green side.
There used to be a lot more apple farms in Sonoma than there are now. There’s more money in wine grapes, so many of the apple orchards have been converted to vineyards. Still, the main road through the Sebastopol area is called the “Gravenstein Highway.”