Adam's Apples

Seasons greetings from Adam's Apples and a grinning  Kendall .

I had a tiny tantalizing sliver of this antique apple on a walk at Tower Hill . Now I've got a whole Tolman Sweet to eat. Somewhere between small and large, this yellow apple is streaked with green, stippled with a light blotchy blush, and decorated with russety scars. Note the green seam running vertically down the left side of the apple. Small lenticels are prominent only when darkened with russet (which is not unusual).

Not gold but light green, this large apple has a classic shape with a small amount of ribbing and a slight conical taper. The green is subtly stippled and the peel has a matte finish. Grimes sports no blush but each of my samples has a side that is smoother and shinier within which the large light lenticels are easier to see. Both apples also have small webs of russet near their bases.

This is the inside of the door to the farm stand at  Red Apple Farm in Phillipston, Massachusetts ( map ).

These classically shaped apples with minimal ribbing span the range between medium and large. A thin red blush washes over an intense spring green. The waxy peel shines. Except where accented with specks of russet, the small lenticels are hard to see. I wonder if these are fully ripe. They feel quite hard. Stark's flesh is a medium-coarse yellow-green. That unripe theory looks pretty good, but lets see what there is to see.

When I took a half-day off today to ride my bike in the crisp fall breeze, I left my knapsack at home. No apples today, I thought. Instead I found a new (to me) variety ("Rusty Sweet," watch for it in a future review), more illicit Sweetangos , and some of the darkest, most beautiful Arkansas Blacks I have personally seen. Those Blacks are from Red Apple Farm at Lexington's farmers market . Red Apple will be there for one more week next Tuesday.

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.