Adam's Apples

It is August and I do not need to be mucking about with apples from last year that are just (let's face it) not going to be very good now. I've already had some great (and fresh!) Pristine and Paula Red this month. There are other early apples about with more on the way. But McIntosh (left) is a fall icon, and Empire (right) is one of my go-to apples in the impoverished springtime. Supermarkets here have both of them today. So let's see which of these two old warhorses have fared better over the fall, winter, spring, and half of summer.

LOVE THE ONES YOU'RE WITH Lemonade , above, is a right good apple, well balanced and eminently worth choosing . But the main reason I was glad to see this variety last month is geographic. My Lemonades grew in New Zealand and were picked in the spring. They are half a year fresher than the other apples in stores today. And, you can taste it.

Breed the noble McIntosh with the ubiquitous Delicious, and you'll get a different variety every time you do . But when the  New York State Agricultural Experiment Station at Cornell University did so in 1945, it created Empire . This apple is a reliable, crisp variety that boasts generic versions of the berry-and-wine flavors that characterize most of the vast McIntosh family.

Two years ago I had the idea of comparing Macoun with Rubyfrost. This was an appealing thought because both are products of the same breeding program in New York, separated by 90 years. But it proved not a fair match . So this year I am back with what ought to be a more apt comparison: Rubyfrost (r) versus Empire , also from the same breeding program. Those tiny white streaks are snowflakes.

I treasure Empire in the spring, when it is a reliable echo of Fall's vinous apples. But I rarely eat it during that harvest. With a decidedly streaky blush, a bit of a smokey bloom, and a shape less conical than I have come to expect, these large apples look different enough from the supermarket version that I did not immediately recognize them hanging on the tree. So I picked one and brought it home.

Available nearly year round, this durable variety is a personal mainstay in the winter and spring, when they are shipped from controlled-atmosphere storage to the supermarkets. I've already reviewed Empire, but since I eat so many of these felt I should, for once, try one fresh from the orchard.

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.