I pit APPLES!

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
61

I’ve had plenty of experience with non-supermarket fresh apples straight from the local orchard. I live in Virginia and actually used to buy produce for a small store that specialized in “local.”

Apples I liked: Albemarle Pippin, Smokehouse, Black Twig, Mutzu, Spitzenberg, Gala, Fuji, Jonagold, Stayman, Ginger Gold, Virginia Gold, (and a very small sweet old-time variety whose name escapes me but had the sweetest taste of any apple I ever had).

Apples that were just OK: Idared, MacIntosh, Jonathan, Cortland, Prima, Granny Smith, Gold Delicious, Red Delicious

Apples fit for horses only: Rambo, Lodi, York

See…lots of apples eaten over my 51 years of existence, some quite good* for an apple*. Thing is, they were all still apples and just not the sort of thing I’d get to excited about compared to other fruits.

However, I’ve tasted melons of amazing flavor, the sweetest of seeded grapes, golden raspberries that make your head swim they are so good, plums of the highest order, peaches that light up the universe with a bite etc. etc.

The best of the other fruits easily trump the best of the apples. All us apple critics are saying is that apples are quite overrated given their space in our lives compared with other fruits.

62

Don’t forget what keeps the doctors away! Without apples health costs would be even more through the roof than they are now.

63

I may have seen that movie.

64

This post has been fruited by the Fruitist.
I used to turn up my nose at apples and, in particular, at apple pie, just because it was so plain, so common, so default—like grape jelly. Then I had some really good, homemade apple pie. Apple pie can be really good, if done right.

By the way, Was the forbidden fruit in the Garden of Eden an apple?

65

I wonder if I’m living in the same universe as you, honestly. I agree that many of the varieties you listed are mediocre at best (a lot of them are commercial modern varieties that have been selected for the ‘crispness’ aesthetic, which seems to be both what everybody wants, and what everybody hates, all at the same time.

And I don’t disagree that peaches, melons, etc can be wonderful things.

Not sure I’m exactly with you on plums - I like them, but they’re neither better nor worse than apples, IMO, and grapes - seriously? I’ve eaten grapes straight from the vineyard in France, Greece and Italy, and if I had to nominate a fruit for underperformance, it would be the grape, not the apple.

A fresh, fully-ripe Cox apple, or an Egremont Russet, easily rivals any other fruit in the world, IMO. Others may have a stronger flavour, or be sweeter, or whatever, but not everything is about intensity.

66

Without grapes, we have no wine. Grapes do not underperform.

Without apples, no apple cider. What a shame.

67

I forgot about apple cider. It is pretty nice. But yeah, can easily live without it. That being said, I still eat apples because hey they are good for you or something, and pretty filling. As far as flavors go, please keep them as bland as possible. A “good” tasting apple like a honeycrisp is an affront to fruit.

68

move the goalposts much?

Sounds like maybe you’ve never had good cider. Anyway, without apples, we have no apple pie, no German apple cake, no candy apples, etc.

69

Please keep your fruit out of my cake. Candy apples…meh! Of course you’ve seen how a child’s face lights up when they get an apple during a Halloween visit instead of candy.

Then there’s the messy core you’ve got to deal with. And eat that apple fast, lest the fruit show it’s true color and brown up if you set it down for a few minutes before finishing.

Apple pie? Most anything can be made to taste halfway decent with a crust, a bunch of sugar, and a dollop of ice cream.

Apple butter? I rest my case.

70

Unlike peaches, melons, pineapples, mangoes, pears, nectarines, apricots, bananas, grapes, cherries, grapefruits, pomelos, guavas, plums, lychee, and papayas. Which are entirely edible, and have no pits or skins to deal with.

71

Point taken. Still, there’s just something aesthetically unpleasant about an apple core that’s not there with, say, a peach pit or grapefruit rind.

72

You know that thing you like? It sucks.

73

Unfair! This was a thread I did not start that advocated an opinion I fairly agree with concerning the merit ( or lack thereof) of apples. This is not a personal attack on apple lovers however misguided they may be. Please defend apples if you can, but let us not make this personal.

(Tosses apple at Mangetout as soon as back is turned)

74

The only thing I need say in defence of apples is that I am almost universally underwhelmed by those apples I can buy in the supermarket, that have been shipped halfway around the world, but have been frequently very satisfied in those I picked myself or obtained from sources that care just a little about them, and have been more than occasionally quite overwhelmed by the experience of eating a perfect apple of a decent variety.

Good apples are as different from mediocre apples as apples are from oranges. Unfortunately, mediocre apples are just very, very common.

75

You know, all kidding aside, I have always hated apples, and anything apple derived (apple juice, apple pie…). But, I’ve never had a “good” apple; one that was fresh from the tree in one of these supposedly delicious varieties. I’ve never bothered, even though I had the opportunity, because I hate apples. But this thread has made me re-think that. Next time I’m presented with an opportunity to eat an orchard fresh apple, I will try it.

Here’s to fighting ignorance, guys!

76

Cool - when you do that, you should be looking for an apple that detaches from the tree when lifted gently.

77

I eat them, seeds and all. Pretty much everything is consumed but the stem. But then I’ve been known to consume whole ( small ) Meyer’s lemons, including the peel.

Strangely, this has been known to sometimes generate horrified stares :D.

78

I eat the whole thing too, minus the stem. My daddy taught me to eat them that way

79

But without apples, I wouldn’t be enjoying a tasty glass of homebrew cider right now. I would have to have a glass of tasty homebrew ale. Actually, that’s not bad at all… to hell with apples!

80

Cider is nearly carbon-neutral - beer making involves a fair bit of boiling and simmering. Apples FTW!