Depends on if you have trees.
Red Delicious is great right off the tree… but tastes crappy when stored. (i.e. Grocery)
Gravensteins… may be the best ‘tree eating’ apple.
Fuji’s great apples, produces very well. Stores well.
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The issue there is that those are all what are referred to as “club apples”, which means they were developed by a group (Honeycrisp at U of Minn., Jazz by Apple marketer ENZA and Cripps as part of the “Pink Lady” trademark standard set). The grower pays a royalty on every tree planted and every pound sold. They command very high prices in the market because of the name and marketing, but are more expensive to grow and maintain a margin on. Gala was once a patented varietal but is now public, IIRC. It’s a hell of a lot cheaper to plant and sell, anyway. Better for growers.
Anyway, Cox Orange Pippin, which is a pippin variety (grown from seed) is hands down the best eating apple ever.
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I probably drove past your orchard on occasion, as I lived in Sonoma county (Windsor and Rohnert Park) for some 6 years during the ole century. Gravenstein apples are very popular there.
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I will certainly grant the the skin on a red delicious is too tough: bred more for shipping than eating. In the Fall, when they are fresh, I do enjoy the firm crispiness of the flesh. I think that part of the reason that RDs get such a bad rap is that they are available year round, so if you buy an apple in May that has been sitting around for more than six months, it is probably an RD. They may store somewhat better than most varieties, but a 9 month old apple is always going to be inferior.
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Finally! Thank you. About the only good thing about this godforsaken time of year in my neck of the woods is that Cox’s are readily available in the shops.
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I was on the Southern end of the county, near the town of Sonoma, more close to Lakeville, by way of Petaluma. If you know where Ford’s Cafe was on the old road to Napa valley, that be the closest landmark. Basically bum f@#k, but with apples.
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I grew up across the street from a 35 acre apple orchard. The owner always allows us neighbors to harvest drops for baking and such.
For cooking the best was always macintosh. They were flavorful and cooked well. For eating directly my favorite was and is STILL the Red Delicious. Maybe buying from a grocery store sucks. But the fresh from the tree ones we always get here were great.
This bullshit of “Red Delicious apples are the devil…you need to be eating insert trendy variety name here” is the same bullshit as “If you’re not drinking your whiskey neat, you are doing it wrong” elitist, millennial, let me tell you what’s what douchebaggery.
My reply to people who say stuff like this…FUCK OFF! It’s not going in your god damn mouth, it’s going in mine. And I will put in my mouth what I choose, how I choose, and you can step the fuck back with your “You’re doing it wrong” fuck off attitude.
Yes shit like this really SERIOUSLY pisses me off.
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Golden Delicious is where it’s at.
It wasn’t always thus. When I was a kid, Red Delicious truly were. And they were crisp, and tart, and refreshing. I don’t know if they were inbred too much, or bred for shelf-life and profitability over taste, but it’s a darn shame to see a great apple ruined.
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out of context, that could have gotten you a lot of interesting looks…
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… goes back to yelling at kids to get off their lawn…
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Came here to say Braeburn. Then Jazz and Pink Lady. And a very green Granny Smith is good with vintage cheddar too.
Golden and Red Delicious - pappy, tasteless, borderline inedible to me.
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Years ago I got sucked in by the marketing; it looks good, and it has ‘delicious’ right there in the name - it’s got to be good, right? Huh. That was terrible. Oh well, probably just an old apple. Try another a while latter. Huh, weird, same as the first. Maybe this was a bad season. Next year - WTF, are these all and always bad? Yes. Yes they are.
I think the only time I (inadvertently) eat them now is when I very occasionally buy a toffee apple at a fair. And even then they mostly seem to be granny smiths.
It’s a tragedy, really. A nice crisp juicy apple is an unalloyed pleasure, and a healthy snack. And the travel well. But fucking travesties like red “delicious”, along with hateful multi-year cool storage which turns even great apples into floury shit, mean that buying apples at the supermarket is really a lottery. And why enter a lottery when you can just buy a bag of crisps or a chocolate bar, and know it’ll be fine?
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lol, yeah. I don’t mind people telling me that there are alternatives to what I’m doing. I can take it or leave it. But I’ve learned a lot of things from people telling me I’m “doing it wrong”.
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It’s all been said above. I do like a good Honeycrisp, Fuji, or Braeburn, but I would walk a mile for a really good McIntosh.
And I hate when you get a mis-sorted one, expecting crisp and tart, but winding up with bland and mealy.
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The Gala overtook it, and hopefully the noble Granny Smith will further dethrone it soon.
But Granny Smith apples suck…
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I got a couple Arkansas Blacks for my mother as her Christmas present last year, and they really are magical.
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They have structural integrity and are great pie apples though.
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I just don’t care for their particular taste, but if someone offered me one i wouldn’t be a snob about it and i’d accept it.
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