Adam's Apples

This large yellow apple looks and smells like a Golden Delicious . It's perhaps a little more squat, and the blush, when there is one, is different, a streaky orange pink with a hint of copper. (Golden Delicious will blush if you let her, but the effect is more solid, like this .) The green lenticels are a little different as well. But the classic conical shape, the moderate ribbing, and the rich cider-and-honey aroma all suggest Golden D, in the family tree if not in the flesh. It has an open calyx and is quite firm.

Oops, no photo for this one! So, picture a big yellow apple, ribbed, with a very partial light orange blush that is streaky. David D'Angelo, an apple farmer from Maine, shared one of these with me in November. Our sample has cracked a bit around the crown where the apple grew too fast "like an heirloom tomato," as David said. There are large dark lenticels and a cidery aroma with more than a hint of the Golden Delicious. Star Song has light yellow flesh, fine-grained, with mild well-balanced qualities that showcase a hit of banana and, we agreed, something else tropical (though we could not lay our tastebuds around exactly what).