Adam's Apples

These Japanese apples have the same parents. How far does the family resemblance go?

Two crisp, light, apples with almost attenuated flavors. The idea for this match up felt obvious from the moment I had my first Aurora earlier this year. Aurora Golden Gala (R) meets a yellow late-season Mutsu. (Mutsu is often sold green.) Aurora is premium-sized, what you'd find in a supermarket, and Mutsu is just huge. (The photo understates Mutsu's size.) So, a lot of apple to eat at one sitting! But I ran into some surprises at first bite.

Temporarily between snow storms, I couldn't place these large blocky apples in a bin at Somerville's winter market today. Some of them were huge. Their cheerful sunshine yellow and small rosy orange blush (but not the shape) suggested Blushing Golden , which would have been a find indeed in February. When I learned they were Mutsu I had to see how they had fared in storage for 4 months.

Update: These are last year's Mutsus, stored very well. Of course. That was my first guess when I saw them at Farmers Market last week. But when the seller insisted they were fresh picked, I entertained some bizarre theories (below) consistent with that. This week the grower himself was at the market and he told me the truth.

I bought one of these big guys at Volante Farms yesterday. Volante says this about Mutsu: This Japanese apple is a descendant of the Golden Delicious. It is large, spicy, crisp & juicy. Excellent all-purpose apple. Various sources say this is the Crispin apple by another name. Mutsu is bigger and greener than Golden Delicious, whatever its relation. This is a large fruit, almost cylindrical, with definite ribs and a light green-yellow skin. The color varies from green-yellow to yellow-green and has darker green spots perhaps a tenth of an inch across, some with tiny white centers and some with tiny brown ones.