How the worst apple took over the United States, and continues to spread

boing
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Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2014/09/11/how-the-worst-apple-took-over.html

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iJokes in 5, 4, 3…

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What is the Red Delicious good for anyway? Applesauce? I never buy them because their mealy mouthfeel and bland taste make them a supremely unsatisfying apple to eat straight. Their flavor and texture are all wrong for pies too. I don’t know anybody who likes them.

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Interesting to think how much even the foods we treat as “natural” are as much a fabricated product of commerce as they are of the earth. Reminds me of the story about current bananas being uniformly worse than older varieties that used to be common and are long lost.

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Team Johnagold represent!

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A lot of industrial food use like schools, who don’t care, they just have to provide apples.

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‘‘Bread Delicious’’

I’m on team Cortland.

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I’m of the Fuji persuasion as well, although I will cheat and go w/ Honeycrisp or Braeburn on occasion. Now, pie apples, that’s a whole different ballgame. Granny Smith and Golden Delicious blend.

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Russets, you Colonial oiks.

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I think the reign of the Red Delicious coincided with the age of Twinkies and Wonder Bread. Sure they’re still around, but people generally know better now. When I was a kid (70s-80s), Red Delicious was the most prominent of the 3 or so varieties of apples available. Now they’re only one of at least 8-10 varieties in any supermarket produce section I visit.

Now we just need a similar renaissance in supermarket tomatoes!

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Crabapples, are on the top of my list, for their superior pectin content and ruggedness.

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Pink Ladies (yum! like a Fuji, but sweeter and more juicy), Fuji, Gravenstein (the drought seems to have made for a poor crop this year? or mb just a bad batch… that one bad apple spoiled em all!) Granny Smith if that’s the last choice before red ‘delicious’.

Just made some crab apple butter from the tree in the back yard - surprisingly mild!

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I’m #teamfuji as well. I just wish they didn’t bruise so easily.

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Honeycrisp! And I’d love to try some of the heritage varietals preserved by the guy described at http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/03/garden/03garden.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

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I like my apples practically off the tree, slightly unripe to give it a little more tart flavor… The Paula Red is a very tasty variety for those who can get a hold of one.

A quick and nasty way to identify a Red Delicious: Look at the bottom of the fruit, if the shape is similar to the bottom of a 2-liter bottle of pop, then it’s a Red Delicious.

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Fuji, Paula, Empire and the occasional Cox Orange Pippin, when I can get them. Even Macintosh (the apple, not the Apple). Yellow Delicious if nothing else is available, but not Red Delicious.

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I’ve found my apple twin. <3

I can’t eat the skin of red apples. I get a weird reaction wherein my tongue and the back of my mouth itch like crazy. It is not good or fun.

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I can’t eat the sugar of any apples any more. I get a weird reaction wherein my intestines flare up. why does everything have to be so excessively sweet, so loaded with fructose or sucrose [50% fructose] or sugar alcohols [100% pain]?

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From the opposites attract dept; my wife loves them.

I like anything that is firm and tart. My favorites were the odd varieties that grew in our field when I was a kid (especially when they were not quite fully ripe).