Adam's Apples

A taste of things to come at the Arlington Farmers Market on July 19. The note says "baking apple," a fair assessment of Lodi , which never seems to be very good for eating out of hand.

There is a charming antique Russian apple called Yellow Transparent, also called White Transparent, of surprising sophistication if you get good ones.  That's challenging as this early August variety is at peak for about 45 minutes. Almost nobody grows it these days, which is a shame, but there are two modern varieties that sort of fill the same niche.

Perhaps not the best apple of all time, but the event it heralds has no match in the calendar of fruit. The above Lodi apple is the first of the 2018 apple harvest.

In this photograph, Lodi (left) and GoldRush clasp hands across the seven barren months that divide one harvest from another. Lodi , the tapered green fruit at left, is the harbinger of the new harvest, the first and only apple at farmers market. GoldRush was picked last October and has spent its days in my mudroom and refrigerator. Let's see how they compare.

Today we weigh two modern varieties in the shadow, or perhaps the light, of a third apple that isn't here: a hundred-sixty-plus-year-old Russian variety called  Yellow Transparent .

Lodi (L) and Yellow Transparent. These early varieties are sometimes confused. 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.

Lodi (R) and Yellow Transparent (R), both picked too soon Lodi is one of several varieties heralded as a "better" more modern substitute for the flighty Yellow T. Consequently I have been wanting to put them head to head for several years.

Two early-season light-green apples. Lodi (at left) is a small medium, slightly conical and ribbed, with faint green lenticels. In lieu of a blush, the sun-touched region is a shade more yellow. Gingergold (right) is medium-to-large, a slightly darker hue of Lodi's green. Its shape is similar, with more-prominent ribs ending in distinct bumps at the base. The lenticels are similarly indistinct areas of a darker green, though on both apples some lenticels are defined by a small dark speck at the center. Gingergold's blush can run to a pronounced streaky orange pink. Lodi's appearance is more delicate; Gingergold's, more substantial. In terms of flavor, the opposite is true.

Two years ago, Red Apple Farm sold me some apples that I found exceptional. I thought they were Lodi apples because the grower said so. This year, it turns out, those apples were really Yellow Transparents. So of course last Tuesday I let Red Apple sell me some more apples called Lodi, and of course I think that's really really what they are this time. Okay, I see the pattern. But I'm getting fed. Pass the fruit. These apples are on the large end of small, a delicate yellow-green that is mostly yellow on the sunward side, where there is sometimes a hint of pink.

The first apples have come early this year. The wonderful fresh Vista Bella apples (right) usually come in the third or fourth week of July, though since the growing season is so early this year I thought we might see them sooner. I was completely surprised however to see Lodi (left) at the Arlington's Farmers Market today. If Lodi they be--I scarcely recognize them. Their shape and size and color is not what I expect. They are usually small but today tower over the Vista Bella.