Adam's Apples

I thought my previous review would be the last for 2017, but happily a reader from Washington State decided to send SugarBee my way. Thank you, John! The moment I unpacked these, something said " Honeycrisp " to me. It isn't size: these are large but not nearly as big as the H bomb. Nor is it shape. I think its the orange tinged blush, which also has shimmery quality, at least in artificial light. That is Hcrisp-esque. Either that, or I am just sensitive lately about Honeycrisp's outsized influence on the apple world, and was unconsciously triggered by the S word in SB's name. In any case, my gut reaction proved true, see below.

I am a sucker for this kind of look, a mix of colors layered provocatively. Here russet tops the reddish orange blush, but on other samples the underlying yellow is also visible and sections of the blush are an almost peachy orange red. This interplay of colors on Kidd's Orange Red is further enlivened—or muddled—by large indistinct lentical dots smeared like the markings on an animal's pelt.

I didn't think I'd get a crack at EverCrisp, a ballyhooed Honeycrisp successor, for several more years. But today I have two.

Visually the most interesting thing about Wagener is the tentative, almost milky red blush, which washes in varying patches over a spring green that is practically yellow. I don't mean that it is terribly beautiful, but it is surprisingly complex. The blush is also a bit streaky in some places, and there are small light lenticel  dots. The peel has a semigloss sheen. Click on the photo if you'd like to look closer.

A lively little apple that tastes like melon. What's nicer than that?

I don't know how large these generally get, but my Limbertwigs (named for bendy, droopy branches) are on the small side of medium, stock sturdy Hobbits of the apple world. They are just a little oblate, with ruddy red cheeks over a light spring green. There is considerable iridescent russet and also a fair amount of sooty blotch. One sample has a patch of the black microdots known as flyspeck . (This cosmetic blemish has nothing to do with flies.) Many orderly tiny white lenticels are clearly visible in the blush. These are tactile, little rough bumplets. Off the tree for weeks if not months, Limbertwig is rock hard and promising.

This old Irish apple has a marvelous painterly look, with Celtic knots of russet, lenticels, and sooty blotch dancing across the red-blushed peel. I got seven heritage apples to try at Cider Days on November 4, and this is the gnarliest.

This small, slightly oblate apple, perhaps 2 inches across, is ribbed, sometimes extremely so. It has a streaky red blush over light yellow, tinted orange where the blush is thin. The lenticels are effectively invisible. I have two samples that bear a sweet cider aroma. In early November, Benoni's flesh is soft and yielding, on its way to mealy but with plenty of miles left before it gets there. It turns out that Benoni is a summer apple.

Red- and pink-fleshed apples are experiencing a moment right now, though the effect is sometimes muted by climate. Many of these varieties (but not all ) need an environment milder than ours to develop their internal colors fully. Still Surprise's pink marbling is striking. On the outside, this medium-sized apple, ribbed, alternates yellow-green, green yellow, and a light orange pink. Is that last a blush, or does it relate to places where pink flesh lies immediately beneath the glossy peel? The surface is decorated with brown lenticel dots.

With its magenta-tinged red blush and prominent lenticel spots, this large, round, slightly flattened apple reminds me visually of Opalescent. (Some are tapered.) Pretty RosaLynn's shiny blush is streaky in places, but coverage is very good. The unblushed yellow region of the apple in the photo above shows where, probably, another apple cast its shadow. These have deep stem wells and minor but real ribbing. Mine came all the way from Washington State. Enroute they lost any aroma they might normally have off the tree.

Wouldn’t it be handy if apples came labeled? Someone wrote “Crow Egg” on the top of mine with a sharpie. That's the mark of having lots of apples and wanting to keep things straight.

Joe Podles, who lives here in Massachusetts, named this apple (after "Cue," his dad) and has grafted it for other growers. Back in the day, that would have been enough to make Cue's Favorite a full-fledged named variety. In 1880, there might have been a report about Cue's Favorite in the proceedings of some horticultural society, and that would be that. Perhaps Spencer Beech would have collected it into his book, the Apples of New York , in 1909—without as much as a single plant patent, trademark, apple club , or or Twitter account in sight. But today this pleasing apple has no such status, and Cue's Favorite is but a nickname. Which means, gentle reader, that your options for finding this apple are limited. More on all of that below the fold.

“Bonkers” is a nickname for this otherwise nameless apple, but one that is used widely. These can get positively huge, but I bought two that are merely conventionally large (one a little runty, in fact). Why: it’s mid October and I have to leave room to eat more apples. The apple in the photo is squat and trapezoidal. Its cross section from the top is oval, rather than round. Turns out there is a reason behind the odd shape, though they aren’t all like that.

Is there a fitter name for an apple that is cold-hardy down to −40° F? (The tree, not the fruit.) But the best thing? It's really good.

I do not know if the name of this apple is an error, a joke, or something else (named for a Mr. or Ms. White?), but I was not expecting this flamingo-pink interior. The elongated, olive-shaped  fruit is small, though large for a crabapple, about 2 inches high. Each has a glossy peel that blushes from a delicate pink-orange wash to a saturated red.

Spoiler alert: No strawberry flavors in mine. And it might not even be the right apple (but I think it is). I have two of these charmingly named apples (SheNANGo, or so I imagine), medium sized, oblated, and with the merest ribbing. The streaky red blush covers yellow green and is a dull crimson at its deepest.

Clochard is straightforward enough: it means "tramp" (sometimes translated as "hobo.") Reinette means... whatever it is that Reinette means .  ¶  That part is a little less straightforward, but in regard to apples if you read the link you will see why I take the word to be a claim of a kind of quality . A reinette is a cut above.  ¶  So "Reinette Clouchard" suggests a quality apple, but one with a rough common touch. Let's see.

A generous reader sent me today's Antonovka, along with some very fine Jonareds ( sports of Jonathon ) from his garden orchard. Thank you, Mark. My squat, painterly Antonovka runs a mini rainbow from spring green to a faint peach, the latter a blush spread thinly over a peel that is largely yellow. The small lenticels are hard to see except where filled with dark russet, and there is an odd glassy region on the side opposite the blush. Am I seeing watercore from the outside?

I was unimpressed when I tried Akane back in 2010. But a reader told me to sample this variety fresh off the tree for the real story. Given that my 2010 Akane was on the early side, and from a food co-op in Seattle, a redo seemed like a reasonable item for the apple bucket list. But it's not grown widely here, and this is my first crack at a second bite.

Fooled again. It's not unusual this time of year to see one or two new kinds of apples in stores, fresh off the boat from New Zealand or other points south. So I pounced on Breeze when I found it last week in a local supermarket. To cut to the chase: They're Galas .