Adam's Apples

Ashmead's Kernel, Roxbury Russet, and Golden Russett. When you see these three gentlemen, you know that the heart of the harvest has arrived. Join me for a taste.

The scene of today's professed oddity is Pease Orchard in Templeton, Massachusetts ( map ). There I was solemnly told that this apple was a Roxbury Russet—only without the russet! Note that the skin of this small apple is smooth and shiny, not rough like the peel that can been seen peeking though the russet jacket of a normal Roxbury. There's even a faint streaky blush. Unheard of.

They make a distinct family of apples, yet all russets are not the same. The Golden and Roxbury varieties are so alike that some growers and sellers mislabel them (to my confusion ). So, let's set the record straight. On our left sits Roxbury Russet, an oblate, slightly ribbed medium-sized apple. Sometimes know as the Roz, this is one of America's oldest cultivated varieties.

A month after reviewing an apple sold as a Golden Russet, I began to suspect I'd had the wrong fruit (as explained here ). That was in 2008. I've since reviewed the real Golden Russet (obviously different) but remained unsure what the original apple was. It's now clear that the first apple was a Roxbury Russet. Indeed my own description —larger than most russets, somewhat oblate, with piebald russetting—is characteristic of the breed. I saw this confusion again this fall from another seller. (Meanwhile the first grower sold both Golden and Roxbury this past year, and got it right.) Maybe the natural variation in the appearance of these two varieties is great enough that either can sometimes resemble the other. The Roxbury Russet I reviewed in the fall of 2009  (right), with russet that is fuller and tawnier than most, looks a bit like a Golden (center) in ways my 2008 Roxbury (left) does not. ...

A local apple—Roxbury today is part of Boston—these are medium to medium-large and only partly rusetted over spring green. Some have a coppery blush. The patchy russet is a grey brown and the underlying colors show through a little. Roxbury's lenticels are small and often rusetted; some are larger and slightly raised. My samples run from ribbed to slightly ribbed, with a closed calyx, and are quite firm in hand.