Adam's Apples

They are tiny, which perhaps explains how I missed these Wickson apples at the back of my produce drawer.  ¶  They do not have the most hopeful appearance, but I had to try them.  ¶  Verdict: Surprisingly good, though but a shadow of their best.

This wrinkled, rubbery apple tastes better than anything in supermarkets this month.  ¶  Click to view up close and personal.  ¶  The texture is not bad either.

Today I get to eat two excellent modern apples (" worth seeking !") that share a particular quality. Competently managed, they both deliver peak eating in the spring. Lady Alice , at right, has saturated flavors with wonderful malt notes and a substantial crunch. GoldRush presents pear and banana along with a dash of citrus. 

I find that most keepers, or winter apples, hale from the later part of the harvest. But there are many exceptions. One of these is Melrose . I discovered this apple's winter virtue a year ago by virtue of poor organization of my apple hoard.  Then, several Melrouge (a sport of Melrose) lurked in the back of my refrigerator. They proved good. This past fall I made a point of buying some for a midwinter bonus.

No wonder they call keepers "winter apples." I got two pecks of GoldRush apples today.

Long have I marveled at the wonderful keeping qualities of GoldRush , a modern variety developed by the PRI Co-op . Packed well, GoldRush keeps in my ordinary refrigerator, peaking in April and still quite tasty in June . So today, six months out, let's sample the fall 2017 harvest. And while we are at it, the 2016 harvest too.

This bag held my stash of Gold Rush apples for two and a half seasons. It smells wonderful.

Photographed June 11 I'm still eating the Gold Rush apples I laid down last Halloween and began eating in April.

It'll be many months before I eat anything fresh-picked from an orchard, so the topic of keepers , and of the long-lived varieties that do well in controlled atmosphere storage, has been much on my mind. Keepers, sometimes called winter apples, are varieties that will stay good for months in a root cellar or refrigerator.

I don't always do the greatest job of keeping track of my apple acquisitions. So it was this morning, when I found my last Celestia apple in a bag in my fruit bin. It was past its prime but still quite good, with strong rich flavors that had matured in storage.

A trio of Arkansas Blacks gleam darkly in the January sun earlier today.

Hyperbole aside, the Everlasting enjoys a reputation as a keeper. And, it’s really good to eat. My sample is small, oblate, and lopsided, but I saw larger examples. Most were broader than they were tall. There's almost no ribbing on mine, but those ridges and bumps were more pronounced on some others. Allen's Everlasting has a patchy orange blush with distinct red streaks over a yellow-green peel. It’s really quite striking; click on the photo for a better look. A good third of the apple has a mustard-colored russet, and there are some spotty black discolorations that look like loose rows of ground pepper. Where not rusetted the peel is glossy. Tan lenticel spots are hard to spot against that patchwork riot, but are most obvious in the blushed regions. Another view The apple feels promisingly firm and has a rich fruity aro...

When I started this blog in 2008 it would never have occurred to me to hoard apples throughout the winter so that I could enjoy them in mid-May. Fortunately, I've learned a thing or two since then.

The markets are still filled with fruit, and memories of harvest bounty linger.  ¶  But the trees are bare or nearly so. If you want local apples to eat in December it's time to start stocking up. Otherwise, it will be hit or miss at the supermarket until July.

Half a year after picking, the Gold Rush apple is a fabulous, fabulous keeper. I liked this apple to begin with, but confess I really did not know what to make of claims like this one from a grower: We grow and sell hundreds of bushels of Goldrush every year directly to consumers who proudly show us samples of Goldrush they picked at our orchard the year before. (Emphasis added.)

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.

Season's greetings from Adam's Apples and Arkansas Black.

In October, Phil's pitches these as tasting like Macoun. They are very different apples, yet I can see parallels. Both are excellent and have floral overtones in their respective flavors. As a bonus, Suncrisp is a great late-season keeper to hold and eat in December.

It was logical to suppose, back in October, that the Winter Banana might be a long-lived keeper, also know as a winter apple. I bought a few extra to sample as the cold months unspooled. Winter Banana proved to be as durable as Arkansas Black, which the Banana also resembles in texture and sheer wooden hardness. Here's how it went.

Besides the blush, this apple is really two-toned: a banana yellow (sure enough) tinged a little with green, and a distinctly green-yellow hue. Flecked with brown lenticels, the resemblance to the long tropical fruit is clear, if not necessarily obvious. The blush is small, a light pink whose translucency, over the yellow, makes a peachy orange. The general effect is striking. The apple runs medium to large and is ribbed and slightly conical. The skin is naturally waxy. A week off the tree it is firm and has a sweet grassy fragrance.