August 5, 2005

The rise and fall of a star apple.

Nobody wants to eat Red Delicious apples anymore. WaPo details the famous apple's rise and fall. What fame and fortune will do to a star! I remember when Red Delicious was very sweet, but it was too soft and tender to stand up to the demands of extreme popularity. It had to harden and, doing so, lost all its charm. Now, there's nothing but bitterness and rejection.

9 comments:

Meade said...

Sort of the Marianne Faithfull of the apple world. Take heart, Red Delicious, Marianne came back, so can you. All you need is to tart up a bit, maybe with some Granny Smith genes. And time.

NotClauswitz said...

Never liked those pulpy thick-skinned ones, I like Fujis.

Steven Taylor said...

I find them too mealy.

I prefer Granny Smith or Fuji (amongst others).

goesh said...

4 large apples of any kind, very roughly chopped, the usual cup of brown sugar, with a little extra added, into the sautee pan with it , add fresh cinnamon to taste, but the more the better. Take 4 oz of fresh pineapple juice, 1/2 tspn of soy sauce and 1 tspn lemmon juice, a tiny, tiny dash of salt, mix and heat in the microwave, distribute evenly over the apples/sugar, THEN, lay on some fresh mint leaves, cover and put it on very low heat and do not touch it for about 4 hours. Remove the mint leaves then blast it in the oven on broil for about a minute. Remove and pour on very cold, heavy whipping cream and have at it - YUM! YUM!

Kev said...

I'm still in the Red Delicious camp. I actually like Goldens a little better, but they're more expensive...what's up with that?

Peter Hoh said...

Red Delicious apples represent the triumph of style over substance. Otherwise known as marketing, which allows lousy products to dominate the market.

I'm partial to crisp apples. Like Steven Taylor, I always found the Red Delicious apples to be mealy. Might have something to do with transport and storage. I grew up in South Jersey. Winesaps were my favorite, with York apples a close second. Both were regional apples.

I disliked the way Red Delicious apples dominated the market, crowding out other apples. Red Delicious came to be viewed as the ideal apple form, further marginalizing the local apples that looked different. Winesaps have a less appealing skin than Red Delicious, for example, and local apples are more likely to have blemishes than the "perfect" waxed skin of Red Delicious.

P_J said...

Never liked Red Delicious - too soft, as others have noted. Granny Smiths have always been a favorite, but lately we've been enjoying Pink Ladies - a sweet, almost peachy flavor.

Goesh - thanks for the recipe penance from the other post. Do you feel less crabby?

Sigivald said...

I've been all about the Braeburns for a while, myself.

Of course, up here in Oregon we get a lot of apples.

Ann Althouse said...

I seems to me that Red Delicious had the soft and mealy problem when they first got popular, but they were super-sweet and we loved them anyway. Then they concentrated on making them crisper, removing the great flavor. Basically, as the article says, they are just terribly unripe, though red.