One of my favorite U-picks is out of business and up for sale.
Phil's in 2008 |
For sale in 2014 |
I took the recent photo in front of the property last week.
One of my favorite U-picks is out of business and up for sale.
Phil's in 2008 |
For sale in 2014 |
I took the recent photo in front of the property last week.
I'm here for a second bite at Red Free, a gorgeously colored early variety that is on the large side of medium-sized.
It's oblate and really with no ribbing save around the base, which has the usual bumps.
The glossy blush runs from streaky to a deep cherry red over a green-tinted yellow.
The tiny lenticels are almost invisible. Meanwhile the apple is firm in hand and has only a faint sweet aroma.
The woman who sold me these medium-sized apples warned me twice they would be tart.
Tydeman's Early is round and only slightly ribbed, with a crimson blush that ranges from dark and saturated to streaky.
Many light lenticels of varying size make the surface of this apple a busy place.
Lodi (L) and Yellow Transparent. These early varieties are sometimes
confused.
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I have been trying to get these guys together for years. They are related.
Although both are among the earliest varieties of the summer, their respective
seasons are so short, and their shelf lives so brief, that they rarely
overlap.
Let's see who is the better apple.
Despite the
return of local apples
last week, July was a month when I ate a lot of
imports from the southern hemisphere.
As it turns out, many of the apples that drew me last month—16 of them—were
offspring of Gala and Braeburn, two New Zealand varieties that have become
supermarket staples here in the States.
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(Yes, I am keeping track this year.)
Maybe you've been making similar choices. Here are mine.
Jazz, one of my favorites of the new breeds, is a Braeburn x Royal Gala cross. This means Royal Gala (a variant of Gala) pollinated Braeburn.Envy on the other hand is a Royal Gala x Braeburn cross, with Braeburn as the pollinating parent.
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Of the two, Envy is most clearly a daughter of her parents, displaying some of the best qualities of both, with a satisfying crunch.
Jazz manages to introduce some great new flavors that I've never found in Gala or Braeburn.
Jazz grows in the U.S., but not in July. These apples are imported from New Zealand or other countries south of the equator, where the spring harvest is still somewhat fresh.
Gala and Braeburn often make beautiful music together. In May I enjoyed Lemonade, another direct descendant, and Smitten, of which an unnamed Braeburn x Gala cross is the pollinator.
Of my other July apples, most were Cripps Pinks. Cripps is another New Zealand variety that is not part of the Gala-Braeburn family. It is often marketed as Pink Lady.
I'm gradually taking my leave of these apples as local fruit ripens.