Good riddance. Red delicious apples get mealy fast, sometimes before you buy them. I kept waiting for the article to acknowledge this, and the closest it came was "tastes have sifted." Bah, who has ever liked a mealy apple? Gala, Fuji, and especially Braeburn stay crisp and tasty longer.
Strangely, yellow delicious stays good despite getting softer. It doesn't get mealy, just softer, and it's still great to eat.
When you say yellow delicious do you mean golden delicious? From my experience those are great fresh, but once they've gotten pretty soft then they become bland. Sometimes they'll retain sweetness but if so it doesn't last for very long.
Golden Delicious can also get mealy, but quality varies a lot. As a kid, they were my favourite apple, but as I got older, they got softer and more mealy. Or maybe they were always mealy I only started noticing it then.
I don't buy them anymore. When I buy apples (which is rarely), I usually get either Jonagold (cheap and good enough), or Gala or Braeburn when I want something better.
Red delicious are actually quite good right after they are picked.
Perhaps the reason why we don't like Red delicious is the 'paradox of choice'. 40 years ago, there were perhaps 4 varieties of apples on average in a grocery store, today perhaps 9 or 10. Perhaps with the sweeter, crispier apples brought by advances in Agri-tech the Red Delicious has become lackluster in comparison.
For a while a couple of years back I was an Apple geek (the fruit, not the computer).
It's good to see that the Gala, Braeburn and Fuji apples have already been mentioned.
If you can find them, Jazz apples[1] are a must-try. They are a cross between the Gala and the Braeburn, and the most amazingly crisp apple I've ever tried. I think the flavour isn't quite as good as a Gala, but that crispness is the complete opposite of the Red Delicious.
They are good looking apples, too.
The Pink Lady apple is also a good one. I think that might have my favorite flavour.
Yes, I second the Jazz recommendation. They are as good as, if not better than, Honeycrisp, and usually cheaper. SweeTango was supposed to rival Honeycrisp, but never lived up to the expectation, IMO.
They have over 30 varieties, many of which are very old and unusual. I'm a lover of crisp, tart apples, and they had one, sort of a cross between a Bramley and a Cox, which was one of the finest apples I have ever eaten.
Pink lady is an incredibly sufficient baking apple, but for raw flavor and texture (and admittedly there's some home town pride here), nothing has ever eclipsed a proper sized Honeycrisp for me.
A fellow apple geek! (for me, the fruit and the computer)
I whole-heartedly agree on the Jazz apple! My current grocery store consistently has them in stock (which wasn't true of my prior one) so I'm a very happy camper.
Thanks for the Orange Pippin link. Going to check that out!
Even deep in Iris Murdoch's "The Sea, The Sea" you'll find the Cox being praised by the lead character for being a prince of apples, and putting all others in the shadows.
And very soon, it's Cox season again. What a delight.
Another interesting thing is how the size of the apple affects the flavor. My local super market sells two sizes of Fuji apples, 'Large' and 'Lunchbox'. For whatever reason, the large ones have exponentially better flavor than the smaller ones.
Interesting, and I think it reflects a broader culinary trend in the US: people are waking up to good food.
As a kid in the late 80ies, in a medium sized town in Oregon, real Italian ingredients were not to be had for love or money, even if my parents even knew what they were. Now, when I go home to visit, they have real Italian cheeses, prosciutto, and even some mozzarella flown in from Italy. Local copycats (my Italian friends all get a kick out of "Oregonzola") are also on the rise, which is a good thing in terms of bringing down the prices and increasing availability to a wider swath of people.
My wife and I have discussed a few ideas for food companies that we might be able to start in the US.
I don't understand why every time I read an article that has something to do with apples the writer bashes on red delicious apples and acts like people are being manipulated into eating them. I love apples and I eat a large variety of them, and though I don't get red delicious the majority of the time, they are still really good and are a good goto apple because they are so consistent. I love how they are crisp, that they have a thick skin, and that they aren't overly sweet or sour. Plus, they are really cheap and are often good sized. Varieties like honey crisps can be tasty, but they can be quite a bit more money and they are often so sweet that it's almost like a dessert.
Speaking only for myself, the red delicious takes up valuable market real estate that could better be used by some other variety of apple not resembling fresh styrofoam dunked in sugar water--I resent the red delicious for its combination of prominent place, flashy looks, nondescript flavor, and repugnant texture.
The red delicious stands apart for its extreme crispness, and to those sensitive to it, biting in is like nails on a chalkboard. Also, it seems like one chew releases all the moisture, leaving a mouthful of dry bleh-ness with which to contend.
> I don't understand why every time I read an article that has something to do with apples the writer bashes on red delicious apples
Well, clearly you like Red Delicious apples. And that's fine, I'm not knocking you for that. But I don't think that's a majority opinion. As a result, most articles about apples are written by people who really dislike Red Delicious apples.
red delicious in sfbay area have been uniformly mealy or mushy. My favorite fruit is apples and I can still barely eat them. I think people are just unhappy lots of grocery stores stock only red/golden delicious with maybe a granny smith, or at least primarily red delicious. Plus the name offends...
Go pick apples that grow near you! You don't have to go to a farm to do this in a lot of places.
We pick apples all around Atlanta (and donate them to local food banks) and they are super interesting -- Apple trees that are grown from a seed (a "pippin") will produce an apple that has never before existed (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple#Cultivation), so we get lots of strange varieties from the fruits we pick around town : large, potato-shaped apples that are just dripping with juice but almost tasteless. Golf-ball sized apples that are green-skinned but pink-fleshed. Super delicious ("grocery store quality") apples with strange skin patterns and lots in between. There's tons of fun stuff to find out there.
As a kid in the 1970's living in New Zealand most of our local apples (NZ grows a lot of apples) were green. Imported Red Delicious used to sit in the supermarket looking so red and beautiful and screaming to be purchased, which occasionally I could get my mother to do. I don't remember them being floury, but they were always sweeter than the green apples - a real memory of childhood.
But now in comparison to Gala, Fuji, Braeburn and others, Red Delicious seem floury, the skin is too thick and the flavour no where near as crisp and clean as the other varieties. There's also a lack of airmiles on most of these as we grow them here.
35 years on I don't think my kids have had a Red Delicious, and certainly not something I will miss if I never have another one.
I saw a fascinating documentary about apples last year. It traces the back the roots of all apple races to Kazachstan, where the film maker finds a botanical garden with ancient races. Unfortunately, nothing is documented there.
Interesting read for sure, but it's just like any other product. Things that are nice looking, cheap, and plentiful will always be consumed by the mass market, even if it's lower quality. "Good enough" rules the market for nearly every product out there, at least in the number of units sold. Why would apples be any different?
"Two buck Chuck" wine is the top selling wine year after year, but it's nowhere near the best. I consider Red Delicious "good enough" apples, and they're plentiful. Fiji and Honeycrisp will be my choice when they're available, but that isn't always the case.
American mass-produced fruits are in general disgusting. They are tasteless and watery. Strawberries are probably the worst offenders. In Ukraine, strawberries are very sweet and much smaller. The American strawberries just seem full of water.
Vote with your wallet. Lots of variety has been lost forever because old breeds haven't been cultivated anymore.
There is an initiative here in Europe that tries to keep old true-to-seed breeds alive but they have to fight the brutal lobbying of Monsanto and the likes.
In the end it is our fault when we buy stuff for the wrong reasons (cheaper is better, looks, etc).
Arche Noah:
"In the past 100 years we have lost about 75 percent of agricultural diversity worldwide."
"Beginning of the (20th) century there were 2,000 apple varieties, today you can find at the grocery store only max. 20 varieties."
If you eat the peel, Red Delicious has the highest level of antioxidants / polyphenols of the apples tested. Not all apples commonly available were in the lineup though, like Gala.
There's a great BBC documentary called "Apples: British to the Core" [1] which has a very nice look into the history of apples, how they were cultivated, and how classic varieties are becoming lost. Everything leads back to the Cox Orange Pippin.
I live in Europe now, and enjoy a wide variety of interesting regional apples. Whenever I return to the USA I'm disappointed by the selection and quality of apples available. Red and green. They look nice, but often are waxy and bland.
I've always wondered why at almost every event where large quantities of apples are given out, there's always Red Delicious. I see them and just keep moving on. Really interesting (and unfortunate) story of them.
I'm curious if there are any early generation Red Delicious apple trees left or if they've all become offspring of the selective breeding. I'd like to taste one.
A few years ago I started seeking out good-tasting apples and kept a spreadsheet to track my reviews. If you can get your hands on Jazz or Pacific Rose apples, they are amazing!
I have to say I love Red Delicious apples when they are fresh. They are the worst for shelf life so you need to be careful, but I will take one at its freshest over any other variety I have tasted.
Here's a tip: try to find a large supermarket that caters to Asian customers to buy your apples. The Buford Highway Farmer's Market here in Atlanta has a great selection. They carry most of the varieties mentioned on this thread.
Another thing. Buy in season to get the best quality. Apple picking season is the fall. As a bonus, you'll notice the price drop significantly when the crop comes in.
>At the supermarket near his home in central Virginia, Tom Burford likes to loiter by the display of Red Delicious. He waits until he spots a store manager. Then he picks up one of the glossy apples and, with a flourish, scrapes his fingernail into the wax: T-O-M.
>“We can’t sell that now,” the manager protests.
>To which Burford replies, in his soft Piedmont drawl: “That’s my point.”
40 years ago red delicious were small with firm flesh and a great taste and even better refrigerated. They were also uncommon and perhaps more expensive than the locally grown McIntosh.
Now... red delicious are usually mealy and blandly sweet.
I really miss those oh so delicious apples of my youth.
For anyone that lives in the UK and loves apples, I would recommend the Apple Festival held at Brogdale, near Faversham in Kent [1]. Brogdale is the home of the UK's National Fruit Collection [2] and if you've ever wanted to have 30-40 varieties of apples and pears to taste and buy like a wine-tasting this is the place to be.
[+] [-] pjungwir|11 years ago|reply
Strangely, yellow delicious stays good despite getting softer. It doesn't get mealy, just softer, and it's still great to eat.
[+] [-] dllthomas|11 years ago|reply
Wait, you mean it's possible for them to not be mealy?
[+] [-] bkirwi|11 years ago|reply
> But as genes for beauty were favored over those for taste, the skins grew tough and bitter around mushy, sugar-soaked flesh.
[+] [-] richardwigley|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] spike021|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] colmvp|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mcv|11 years ago|reply
I don't buy them anymore. When I buy apples (which is rarely), I usually get either Jonagold (cheap and good enough), or Gala or Braeburn when I want something better.
[+] [-] mrtimo|11 years ago|reply
Perhaps the reason why we don't like Red delicious is the 'paradox of choice'. 40 years ago, there were perhaps 4 varieties of apples on average in a grocery store, today perhaps 9 or 10. Perhaps with the sweeter, crispier apples brought by advances in Agri-tech the Red Delicious has become lackluster in comparison.
[+] [-] nl|11 years ago|reply
For a while a couple of years back I was an Apple geek (the fruit, not the computer).
It's good to see that the Gala, Braeburn and Fuji apples have already been mentioned.
If you can find them, Jazz apples[1] are a must-try. They are a cross between the Gala and the Braeburn, and the most amazingly crisp apple I've ever tried. I think the flavour isn't quite as good as a Gala, but that crispness is the complete opposite of the Red Delicious.
They are good looking apples, too.
The Pink Lady apple is also a good one. I think that might have my favorite flavour.
http://www.orangepippin.com/ is a good place to learn about the varities available.
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jazz_(apple)
[+] [-] hcrisp|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] julian_t|11 years ago|reply
They have over 30 varieties, many of which are very old and unusual. I'm a lover of crisp, tart apples, and they had one, sort of a cross between a Bramley and a Cox, which was one of the finest apples I have ever eaten.
[+] [-] cschmidt|11 years ago|reply
http://www.economist.com/news/britain/21580468-britains-appe...
[+] [-] cdcarter|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] rpeden|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jbuckner|11 years ago|reply
I whole-heartedly agree on the Jazz apple! My current grocery store consistently has them in stock (which wasn't true of my prior one) so I'm a very happy camper.
Thanks for the Orange Pippin link. Going to check that out!
[+] [-] stock_toaster|11 years ago|reply
Also my favorite!
[+] [-] buro9|11 years ago|reply
The Cox is an incredible apple that seems to grow well in England.
http://www.orangepippin.com/apples/coxs-orange-pippin
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/foodanddrink/8381396/Why-Coxs-wil...
Even deep in Iris Murdoch's "The Sea, The Sea" you'll find the Cox being praised by the lead character for being a prince of apples, and putting all others in the shadows.
And very soon, it's Cox season again. What a delight.
I like apples. What a strange thing to say!
[+] [-] jimworm|11 years ago|reply
http://www.loveapples.co.nz/new-zealand/our-apples/eve/
[+] [-] FeloniousHam|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] cheepin|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] davidw|11 years ago|reply
http://blog.therealitaly.com/2007/10/22/arnolds-apples/
[+] [-] pyre|11 years ago|reply
If you are in or near Portland, they do there is an annual apple tasting event:
http://portlandnursery.com/events/appletasting.shtml
[+] [-] bsdshepherd|11 years ago|reply
http://www.mercier-orchards.com/apple-varieties/
[+] [-] ebbv|11 years ago|reply
You can make this clear by not capitalizing "apple" in this case.
[+] [-] chrisseaton|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] forrestthewoods|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] gadders|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] davidw|11 years ago|reply
As a kid in the late 80ies, in a medium sized town in Oregon, real Italian ingredients were not to be had for love or money, even if my parents even knew what they were. Now, when I go home to visit, they have real Italian cheeses, prosciutto, and even some mozzarella flown in from Italy. Local copycats (my Italian friends all get a kick out of "Oregonzola") are also on the rise, which is a good thing in terms of bringing down the prices and increasing availability to a wider swath of people.
My wife and I have discussed a few ideas for food companies that we might be able to start in the US.
[+] [-] Taylorious|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sk5t|11 years ago|reply
The red delicious stands apart for its extreme crispness, and to those sensitive to it, biting in is like nails on a chalkboard. Also, it seems like one chew releases all the moisture, leaving a mouthful of dry bleh-ness with which to contend.
[+] [-] kijin|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mcphage|11 years ago|reply
Well, clearly you like Red Delicious apples. And that's fine, I'm not knocking you for that. But I don't think that's a majority opinion. As a result, most articles about apples are written by people who really dislike Red Delicious apples.
[+] [-] HNJohnC|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] x0x0|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] durkie|11 years ago|reply
We pick apples all around Atlanta (and donate them to local food banks) and they are super interesting -- Apple trees that are grown from a seed (a "pippin") will produce an apple that has never before existed (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple#Cultivation), so we get lots of strange varieties from the fruits we pick around town : large, potato-shaped apples that are just dripping with juice but almost tasteless. Golf-ball sized apples that are green-skinned but pink-fleshed. Super delicious ("grocery store quality") apples with strange skin patterns and lots in between. There's tons of fun stuff to find out there.
[+] [-] DirtyAndy|11 years ago|reply
But now in comparison to Gala, Fuji, Braeburn and others, Red Delicious seem floury, the skin is too thick and the flavour no where near as crisp and clean as the other varieties. There's also a lack of airmiles on most of these as we grow them here.
35 years on I don't think my kids have had a Red Delicious, and certainly not something I will miss if I never have another one.
[+] [-] chrismealy|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dirktheman|11 years ago|reply
It's in dutch, but the images are beautiful, too: http://www.npo.nl/fresco-s-paradijs-2/20-10-2013/VPWON_11752...
[+] [-] JeremyMorgan|11 years ago|reply
"Two buck Chuck" wine is the top selling wine year after year, but it's nowhere near the best. I consider Red Delicious "good enough" apples, and they're plentiful. Fiji and Honeycrisp will be my choice when they're available, but that isn't always the case.
[+] [-] iopq|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] hoggle|11 years ago|reply
There is an initiative here in Europe that tries to keep old true-to-seed breeds alive but they have to fight the brutal lobbying of Monsanto and the likes.
In the end it is our fault when we buy stuff for the wrong reasons (cheaper is better, looks, etc).
Arche Noah:
"In the past 100 years we have lost about 75 percent of agricultural diversity worldwide."
"Beginning of the (20th) century there were 2,000 apple varieties, today you can find at the grocery store only max. 20 varieties."
https://translate.google.com/translate?sl=auto&tl=en&js=y&pr...
Fun fact: these days Joe Cocker cultivates old tomato breeds on his farm in Colorado and gets some of his seeds from the Arche Noah network.
[+] [-] clumsysmurf|11 years ago|reply
http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/jf0346298
[+] [-] foz|11 years ago|reply
I live in Europe now, and enjoy a wide variety of interesting regional apples. Whenever I return to the USA I'm disappointed by the selection and quality of apples available. Red and green. They look nice, but often are waxy and bland.
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JUAJ0F1oH-M
[+] [-] jbuckner|11 years ago|reply
I'm curious if there are any early generation Red Delicious apple trees left or if they've all become offspring of the selective breeding. I'd like to taste one.
A few years ago I started seeking out good-tasting apples and kept a spreadsheet to track my reviews. If you can get your hands on Jazz or Pacific Rose apples, they are amazing!
[+] [-] jlawer|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] chromaton|11 years ago|reply
Another thing. Buy in season to get the best quality. Apple picking season is the fall. As a bonus, you'll notice the price drop significantly when the crop comes in.
[+] [-] roghummal|11 years ago|reply
>“We can’t sell that now,” the manager protests.
>To which Burford replies, in his soft Piedmont drawl: “That’s my point.”
You're kidding, right?
[+] [-] elchief|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] rbobby|11 years ago|reply
Now... red delicious are usually mealy and blandly sweet.
I really miss those oh so delicious apples of my youth.
[+] [-] gadders|11 years ago|reply
[1] http://www.applefestivalkent.co.uk/search/label/Theapples [2] http://www.nationalfruitcollection.org.uk/