Adam's Apples

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.

Got a few more of these at Red Apple Farm and they are in better shape than the one I initially reviewed, which may not even be a Golden Russet at all. These apples are coppery brown almost all over except around the crown and in streaks radiating down the side. A few have slightly larger unruseted patches. They are small (or on the larger side of small) and slightly ribbed, with open calyxes The flesh of Golden Russet is crisp and juicy, creamy yellow, and coarse. Clean sweet-tart balance with a little bracing acidity, notes of cane sugar, vanilla, lemon, and pear. Nice!

I now suspect that my original Golden Russet review may have been based on the wrong apple. In any case, it does not describe a representative sample of this variety, several of which I have been enjoying since Thanksgiving. Consequently I plan on retitling have retitled my first review "Mystery Russet" and will post have posted a new Golden Russet description shortly . This russet from Kimball I originally bought an apple so labeled from Kimball Farm at the Arlington Farmer's Market in October, and wrote up a review accordingly. I'd have bought more than one but was back then was straining to taste as many of the then-dizzying number of varieties as I could. That apple was interesting but a little mealy. I did the best I could with it.

This may be a Golden Russet, as advertised when I bought it. Or it may be something else. (Any theories, anyone?) In any case it is not a representative sample, as I later discovered when I bought a second batch of Golden Russet apples from Red Apple Farm in Phillipston. That story is here and the true Golden Russet review is here. My original review follows. This russet variety runs medium-small, a bit large for this kind of apple. Patches of rusty-brown russet sit atop the Golden Russet's spring-green skin, small continents and archipelagos of vegetation upon some fantastic planetoid. The russetting does not cover everything but is present in the brown lenticels.