Adam's Apples

The summer harvest parade is well under way by mid August, with quality local varieties such as Williams Pride, Gingergold , and Gravenstein available fresh at farmers market. So there was some irony in finding Diva in supermarkets last week, off the boat (and out of storage) from the spring harvest in New Zealand.

Today we weigh two modern varieties in the shadow, or perhaps the light, of a third apple that isn't here: a hundred-sixty-plus-year-old Russian variety called  Yellow Transparent .

An early Vista Bella promises the harvest to come. Earlier this year I found I had nothing to say here. For four months. But the hope of another harvest, and encounters with four new varieties in June and July, have got me going again.

Lodi Vista Bella

Some unusual flavors commend the apple called Divine (though its variety name is the incomprehensible Delfloki). They are on the small end of large, tapered and conical. Ribbing is subtle and the calyx is recessed so that the apple teeters on a ring around the base. "Teeters" because many of these are oddly lopsided. The calyx is wide open, stamens akimbo.

He's a sweet guy, with some interesting flavors. Red's pretty crimson blush, slightly streaky over yellow green, is accented by striking large light lenticels, widely spaced. The peel is very glossy and almost certainly waxed .

French markets are like ours. Only different. At the Marché Saint-Antoine, on the Presque Isle bank of the Saône River in Lyon, the farmers and food artisans set up their stalls six mornings a week.