Adam's Apples

My medium-large Golden Delicious is a cheerful yellow tinged with green. It has distinctive dark green lenticels that fade to nearly nothing on the blushed area, which is a faint orange pink. My example is ribbed and conical, with a round ridge of chins at the bottom, and theres a small stellation of russet radiating within the stem well.

Nineteenth-century handbooks classify and describe apples using charming, if enigmatic, terms such as aromatic and sprightly. The old descriptions have been cribbed and copied many times, with the result that many of these terms are still thrown about today; some old descriptions are on the Internet, word for word. And why not? These varieties don't change: if they do, by cross-breeding or mutation, they become something else. One of the charms of heirloom and antique apples lies in their patrimony of taste. But though varieties don't change (if you can still find them at all), language does.

The blush on this apple often runs to a handsome deep purplish red, decorated with many light lenticels. Even where the blush is uneven and streaky, (over yellow green), some of the stripes may reach this deep color. The fruit is a large medium, moderately ribbed, and can be conical, as in our photo. There are faint dull patches on the skin of my sample that are almost like a bloom, but I take them to be scuffs in the wax that is regularly applied to apples shipped across country. For Empires keep and travel well, and even though they are grown locally the Empires sold out of season generally come from New York (where they were bred) or farther. This is the time of year I start to eat a lot of them.

This eclectic blog, started by a scientist when he was "a PhD student, working in strawberry genetics," defies neat categorization. So, think of The Fruit Blog as ye old fruit curiosity shop—the boing boing of botany. Here you will find not just posts about durians and medlars, but about a medlar variety that is, apparently, indigenous to North America. (Or perhaps not.)

I've had two new varieties this month, both yummy, artfully marketed, and trucked in from the West Coast. So, who is the fairest of them all? The two apples have similar colors, a red tinged with pink and orange over greenish yellow, for an orange effect. But Piñata's blush is more extensive and also variegated, with attractive flamelike streaks. Ambrosia is perhaps slightly more ribbed with lobed chins at the base. Piñata has larger lenticels. To my eye, Piñata is the more striking of the two, though Ambrosia is shaplier. The apples have similar aromas, but Ambrosia has a bit of pear and berries, while Piñata is spicier, something I hadn't noticed in my previous tasting. Piñata The photos I published with the separate Ambrosia and Piñata reviews are more represe...

Turn your apple over and you will see a small star-shaped mark or opening. That's the calyx, from the Greek kalyx via Latin. It tells a story. Your apple was once a flower. An apple blossom fluttering in the perfumed breeze, her petals wide to all comers. Or maybe I should say his petals, because this baby has a stamen, too, about 20 of them.  In the only pretty little ring time a bee comes and does his thing, or maybe it's another bug or even a botanist. Hey ding a ding a ding.

Piñata appeared at the market complete with snazzy name and the slogan, "Classic apple flavors with a tropical twist." Clearly the marketing gurus pulled an all-nighter on this one, but let's have a look. This is a medium-large apple with a streaky pink blush over yellow; the fusion effect is a variegated flamboyant orange and very pretty. My photographed sample is a bit lopsided but most of the apples were more symmetrical and had a pronounced conical silhouette.  These are moderately ribbed and firm, with a clenched calyx and small light lenticels (many surrounding a tiny dark spot). The unbroken apple has a lovely lush aroma with hints of melon.

A grower once shared this rule of thumb with me: An apple ages as much in a day on your kitchen table as in a week in your fridge. The effect is probably even great than that, depending on the warmth of your kitchen and the coolness of your refrigerator. As DeEll, Saad, and Khanizadeh (1999) put it, Temperature is the single most important factor governing the maintenance of postharvest quality. Therefore, rapid cooling after harvest greatly improves firmness retention in apples during storage. Low storage temperatures are equally important. McIntosh apples have been shown to soften as much as 20 times faster at 21 degrees C than at 0 degrees C. So even if you like to eat your apples at room temperature, refrigerate your apple purchases as quickly as possible if you want to keep them fresh.

I'd never heard of this apple until a reader mentioned it, so when Ambrosia showed up at a local supermarket I had to try one. Place of origin was just listed as "Canada," and I'm guessing British Columbia, where Ambrosia was born. This shapely apple has the tapered, wasp-waisted profile of a Red Delicious. There is an orange-pink blush in streaks over light yellow, with yellow-green lenticels (a bit darker than the skin) throughout. It is medium large and prominently ribbed, to the point of having distinct "chins" on the bottom. The calyx is tucked far behind those chins and is closed. Unbroken, the apple smells promisingly of cider and strawberries.