The Red Delicious is no longer the dominant apple in American orchards, the U.S. Apple Association said last week, after lasting five decades in the top spot. The Gala apple is now first; Red Delicious second; Granny Smith third. By 2020, the Honeycrisp, which so prized by consumers that they’ll pay higher prices for the privilege of eating one, may crack the growers’ top three.It then goes on to spend the rest of the article dumping on the Red Delicious - and I am inclined to agree. The reason I dislike them is because I think they more commonly have a softer flesh, and I really want my apples to be crisp. But there's also not a hint of tartness in them.
I have long held the Pink Lady in the highest esteem - looks beautiful, usually crisp, and adds a certain sharpness in flavour that the mushy Red Delicious never has.
The Jazz apple, when I have had them, have been pretty good too. They don't seem to have taken off quite in the way I thought they might, however, when I first had one years ago.
Interestingly, the Slate article mentions neither of these varieties. What's the Honeycrisp, too?
[Update: I just noticed in my local Coles that there are a lot of apples for sale at the moment - including two I have never tried - Eve and Modi. Jazz are there, but much more expensive than Pink Ladies. The inadequate Red Delicious is there too, as well as Royal Gala, which I don't find much different. Anyway, it does seem to me that in Australia, the inadequacies of the Red Delicious have already been acknowledged by the public.]
And speaking of apples, I had a particularly nice cider on the weekend - from Tasmania, of course, which seems to now be brimming over with small scale, independent cider manufacturers. (Was it last year that I had some delicious cherry pear cider? I have forgotten the brand but I think I posted about it - yes I did, it was Franks.) The one I had on the weekend was on tap, and there were two names on it - perhaps it was Willie Smiths? It was called (I think) "wild fermented", which I suppose (if accurate) would indicate that it was relying on airborne natural yeast? - which must be a risky way of making cider if doing it commercially? [Good and faithful reader Tim, who seems to know everything there is to know about fermentation, I certainly expect to weigh in on this in comments.] Anyway, it was nicer than your average cider.
The bar staff suggested I also try Pagan Cider. I should look out for it.
6 comments:
I like how you get to the core of the problem.
I don't know whay cider you are on.
Wild fermentation! Just crush the fruit and the yeast from the skin should go to work! It can have superb results; maybe it's a bit more risky but the cider that results is often better than non-wild yeast varieties.
Tasmania used to be superb for cider and all things apple, before their apple industry disappeared and many of their orchards were ripped up. It's an ongoing scandal that so many of our best cider producing apples and pears have been lost as traditional orchards have been ripped up.
Tim, my impression is that the place is still crawling with both craft and large scale cider manufacturing.
Surely you exaggerate when you say their apple industry "disappeared"? [I see from one article that the industry did shrink massively in the mid 1970's when the export market dropped out due to the European common market. But there still seemed to be plenty of apple growing areas down there when I drove around it in 2011.]
Yes, craft brewing is definitely on the rise there.
Unfortunately many of the traditional cider apples were lost last century, more or less due to the fact that the market hugely favoured fresh apples with a high sugar content, whereas cider requires flavoursome apples (or pears) that have complexity, a few tannins in the skin (crab apples aren't bad), and sugars and flavours that will remain after fermentation. A few prized varieties do this - Cox's Orange Pippin is probably the most famous. The loss of old orchards would have been the end for some traditional varieties. (The other reason, of course, is the rise of megabrew companies who didn't care so much about quality as mass commodification, and who treated cider like they treated beer - not very well). This is a worldwide problem. Not much to be done about it now!
I am obviously pretty ignorant on apple varieties - can't say I had heard of Cox's Orange Pippen, but I google it and find a Tasmanian tree nursery that says that it must be "the world's most revered apple."
I need to visit that State again...
'I like how you get to the core of the problem.'
I can't claim to be an incider, but I feel Dutton is being less than traspearant about his faux-pears.
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