White pips are a sign that the apple is not yet ripe.
|
The apple, an early Lodi, was super tart and obviously picked too soon.
Unripe apples often have a spongey texture, but mine was reasonably crisp. Yet if only it had been allowed to ripen fully.
I knew this apple was not going to be ready to eat, despite the promise of the grower:
Lodi apples - the first summer apple! Great for baking as eating. Grab some
today! pic.twitter.com/ooeXA53pv0
— Kimball Fruit Farm (@Kimball_Fruit)
July 16, 2015
I bought mine on July 16, and that is just too early around here even for this early variety. Last year, alas, the grower picked all of these before any were ripe. No decent Lodi at all.
I considered passing it by—I mean, if I buy, aren't I rewarding premature harvesting? but in the end I got two.
They were almost too tart to enjoy at all. And yet.
There was something fine about the first taste of a local apple, its hyper tartness a bracing retort to the slick sweetness of all those supermarket varieties.
Mind you, I'd have gotten plenty of that from a ripe version of this fruit,
perhaps at the start of August.
But meanwhile, it's like this.
We buy these apples, and others that could have used more time on the tree, because the farmer picks them.
And the farmer picks them, too early, because we buy them.
Pretty sure I've never actually had a ripe Lodi (plenty of them bought from Kimball!), the problem you describe is magnified for Lodi because it is the absolute first possible local apple and I'm sure customers are clamoring for the first taste. Peapod is STILL delivering USA grown fuji and gala to our office, and I can tell you at this point they taste terrible. I'd rather eat an unripe Lodi.
ReplyDeleteHolly, I was going to follow up this week with (presumably) riper Lodi, but bought some Vista Bella instead.
ReplyDeleteAlso white pipped, but somehow not so beyond the pale as those Lodi from last week.
Red Apple sometimes has ripe Lodi in August; they come to the Lexington farmers market.
My apples are a good size nice colour but white pips and very bitter shouldn't have plucked them
ReplyDelete