Adam's Apples

Things are not pretty here at the end of June. Supermarkets are flush with Honeycrisps picked in August of 2018. Of course the cupboard has been bare at almost every orchard for most of 2019.

It's still about a month before the first local apples are ready to eat here. Apples Yates, Five Crown and Frequin Rouge. Some for the fruit bowl and some for apple crumble 😀🍎 pic.twitter.com/OfZlPTu6Mb — Heritage Fruit Trees (@heritage_fruit) June 22, 2019 But in Australia  (above), there are still plenty of keepers in good shape from the spring harvest.

Apples are from Kazakhstan. But how did they get from there to circle the globe? How did they evolve from the wild, and in response to what evolutionary imperatives? One part of the story: the Silk Road. Another: horses.

The best apples are a blend of sweet and tart.  (Photo: Esopus Spitzenberg ; also shown: Opalescent .) These apples are in or near the sweet spot where the tension between sugar and tartness is perfectly balanced and the flavors sing.  ¶  The old pomologists used the term "subacid" to describe an apple that had some acidity in the mix, but which stopped just short of being predominantly acid.

before after What do you want to be when you grown up? These apples are grafted, so there is really no doubt about that here. Behold the Calville Blanc D'Hiver .

Two Williams data points, one from Harvard on Sunday, another from my Williams review circa 2015.

There's an apple in there someplace. I have never had the pleasure of tasting a Hightop Sweeting, so no "after" photo this time. But isn't this one gorgeous? (And isn't that a topping name?)