Well, what i’ve heard is that it’s the most perfect, unblemished, and largest apples that go to Japan. The Japanese seem to find esthetic appeal in perfect form in regard to fruit. Also, at home, the Japanese had been taking care to pamper their apples so they were protected, got ample light, etc.
Not being much of an apple fan myself the HoneyCrisp is the one exception that I actually like. They were designed by the University of Minnesota by crossing two other apple types.
Hard to find someone who doesn’t like them.
Golden Delicious: the yellow ones are shot. Buy 'em while they are still green and you will be in crunchy heaven. I agree that store-bought Reds are evil, but you might try looking for a little green as opposed to all red.
Oslo, who spent half of his youth sitting in apple trees eating apples.
Glad I’m not the only one! What I wanna know is how a kid can spend an hour grazing in an apple tree and never get a crippling case of the runs–no matter how sour the apples might be toward the end of summer, never a problem.
We kids instinctively knew when and where to seek the wild trees for the best climbing/eating. We had fights over some trees with kids from other neighborhoods the way city kids will fight over turf. It would get pretty brutal and usually involved some mildly serious apple-inflicted injuries. Looking back I’m surprised National Geographic didn’t do a documentary on us. It was all very primal. Fujis are great, but nothing beats a wild apple of unknown pedigree yanked fresh from the top branches of a 30 foot apple tree. Except maybe knocking some punk out of that tree using some of the lower hanging fruit. That rules!
I always get good RD apples. Never, ever had a problem; it’s one of the most dependable things in my life, fruitwise at least.
Is it because I live closer to Washington State than many of the posters in this thread?
Maybe, if you live in the Plains, you are getting the real thing instead of the crap that comes out of Washinton State.
Here’s the cite for what has happen to the Red Delicious:
No, I live in L.A. Almost all the RD apples I see have “Washington” stickers on them.
/slight hijack to Less Than Great Debates
Oh my. Oh my oh my. No indeed you do not want the pieces to be firm in apple pie. no no no. No.
Apple pie should be crisp and flaky in the crust, and smooth as butter inside. No crunchy chunks of apple allowed. If it’s not already a law, it should be.
And no raisins in apple pie.
/hijack
You found one! The bland sweetness has no redeeming qualities I can find.
I grew up on Red Delicious as it was the only thing in the stores, and we had no local orchards. I never knew good apples till I lived in a place where we could get apples fresh from the trees in season. I usually don’t even know what kind I’m eating when they are in season, I just grab a small bag that looks nice and am usually happy (unless, of course, it turns out to be a bag of HoneyCrisp. I can tell that by the taste when I bite in, and then I leave those for the kids.)
To the OP, Braeburn seem much less likely to be mealy than Red Delicious. They are however, much tarter (which I like though some may not.)
Yes. The only sutable apple for pie is Granny Smith, well cooked. I will entertain no debate on this matter.
I live in Seattle and for the longest time I couldn’t figure out what the heck was going on with the apples.
This thread, and especially that article has cleared up a mystery that has been bugging me for years!
Perhaps you do not know that some apple varieties will literally slush themselves into apple sauce when heat is applied. You DO want your apple pie to contain actual pieces of apple, rather than apple paste, right? “Remains firm” in this context should read “does not dissolve” not “stays hard.”
In Wisconsin there’s a couple months of super great apples from the orchards. The growers never seem to go for the national distribution. They saturate the local markets for a while and then everything is imported. The apples go from great to eat, to unripe and tasteless. I like to leave a few apples on the trees so the cold nights make them super sweet. Most of the nameless varieties in old fields are now dead around here. I found a tree that was a five mile walk from a road. It was the best apple I ever tried the flesh was pink to the core. I wanted to graft it, but it was destroyed before I learned to graft successfully.
It could be simply that you have lousy taste in apples.
Red Delicious can be OK as long as they’re crisp. They’re usually not that sweet, but the crispness makes up for some of the lack of flavor. However, they’re such a gamble and I’ve had too many bad, mealy, and unpleasant “Red Delicious” apples that I refuse to buy them and guy primarily Fuji (Although Gala is excellent).
Washington State Garbage Apples…hahahahah! I guess it’s the fact that my grandpa was a NYS apple farmer that did it.
Amen to that. I’ve never even heard of such a thing, but it sounds like a sure fire way to screw up a pie.
I love Cameo apples, and mourn in the fall when the season is over. Right now, my kids and I are mostly eating Galas and Fujis, neither of which I really like. My husband eats only Golden Delicious if he can get them - we ask our local store to get in the 3 lb bags of runty apples, which seem to be a better quality than the larger ones, not to mention usually cheaper per pound than the larger size of the same variety. Also the kids waste less when they eat them.
I have not tried the Grapple, and Honeycrisp is just too expensive compared to certain other varieties to buy in quantity for 4 kids! A couple of years ago I was having a love affair with the Southern Rose (or was it Pink Lady) but the blush has, alas, gone from that rose. Cameo, Cameo, when do you come back in season??!
An apple seller at Pike Place Market (one of the greatest wonders of the world) told me that “Grapples” have been infused, artificially, with white grape juice.
Yup, I would say he lacks sophistication ;).