Apples

[magid]

Rosh Hashana is "early" this year (ie, at the same time in the Jewish, lunar calendar, but earlier than it usually is on the solar, secular calendar), and I did not have time to go apple-picking. It's rather early in the season, too.

So I got apples at the supermarket last night, and it feels like cheating, somehow. I got Pink Lady apples, just for the name, and they looked nice, and some others. I tried one of the Pink Ladies this morning, and it was disappointing, far too mealy to make my top list. I prefer an apple with a lot of crunch. Flavor, too, but without the crunch, flavor isn't enough. So I suppose these will be cooking apples, and I'll use the others for apples-and-honey (which I've always found a bit of an odd combination, just because apples aren't that sweet a fruit, so there's great contrast between the fruit and the honey).

When I was little, I liked red Delicious apples (I don't remember even seeing a yellow one until much later), until I finally realized that despite those cute curves on the bottom, and the nice dark red skin, the ones we got were usually utter disappointment, not crisp at all. So I changed allegiance, finding that Granny Smiths were much more reliable for crunch. However, in recent years, they've gotten popular in supermarkets, and seem to have lost any flavor at all. So I end up looking again. Fujis tend to be pretty good. But I've decided that my favorite apple is the one I've picked at an orchard, fresh and crisp and flavorful. Not that there haven't been any duds this way, but they've been few and far between. And I get to have so many favorites, MacIntoshes, and Jonagolds, and Macouns, and bunches more with interesting names, though all of them red. I don't know if yellow/green apples don't grow around here, or if I've just not managed to find where. And there's the advantages of supporting local agriculture, seeing where the food comes from, knowing just how fresh it is, eating local food in season.

[I wonder how my mom chose her favorite apple, the MacIntosh (named before the computer or the Jason were on the scene), which is grown at all the local orchards, including the one in Brookfield that we always went to when I was young. It's a nice tart apple, though sometimes too much so for me (never for her).]

So now I start to think of how to use the apples I still want to pick sometime this fall, even if not in time for the holiday. Applesauce, of course. Apple crisp, apple brown betty, apple cake. Cran-apple relish. Apples'n'onions with chicken. Baked apples. Apples sliced into spinach salad, with almonds.
Not in fruit salad, though. I've decided that apples and pears just don't belong in fruit salad. The texture is all wrong, somehow.

Comments

MacIntosh named for the Clan!

[cthulhia]

My clan. Well, one of my clans. I'm rather a scottish mutt.

However, my favorite by far is Macouns. Yum.

(If Fruitbat has a fall equinox party this year, it will invariably involve a Sunday Apple Picking Excursion. He's big into the fruit thing. I wonder which came first, the nickname or the fruit habit.)

Re: MacIntosh named for the Clan!

[magid.livejournal.com]

Macouns are pretty awesome.

At least he's not a fruitarian. I just don't get that. (Hm. Do fruit-only eaters eat tomatoes?)
–

Re: MacIntosh named for the Clan!

[pinkfish.livejournal.com]

If you go back far enough in my livejournal, you will find my entry about and encounter with a vegan who eats no cooked food (I forget what he called that stage). His next ambition is to become a fruitarian. The definition of "fruit" he will use is more a botanist's definition than a grocer's (I don't know what botanists say about nuts and grains as far as being fruit).

As for tomatoes, that was definitely a "yes". And avocados, too. When I talked to him, he was figuring out how to get all his nutrients, and fat is one that is difficult to get from fruit alone. Avocados to the rescue!

Raw fruit

[magid.livejournal.com]

I still don't understand how anyone can survive on fruit alone, not to mention the sheer boredom of it. Somehow it sounds more like PETA for vegetables than a diet designed for humans to stay healthy on.

I don't understand the raw food thing either (my limitations are showing). I was highly entertained to see a review of a raw food cookbook (sic), which included the information that food is not "cooked" if it is kept below a temperature of [I don't remember what, somewhere in the low 100s]. All I could think of was the idea of not cooking on Shabbat, but reheating (solid [1]) foods is ok, as long as it's not above a certain given temperature that I'm not remembering right now. Which, of course, means that the raw foods people are really a religion....

[1] [Sabbath-observing] Ashkenazi Jews reheat only solid foods on Shabbat, while [Sabbath-observing] Sefardi Jews reheat both solids and liquids.
"

Re: Raw fruit

[pinkfish.livejournal.com]

the raw foods people are really a religion....


If you ever doubted this, then you didn't meet the raw foods fellow I did! He was on the way to become a fruitarian, and then eventually to a breatharian, that is, he would give up food entirely. There are several people who have reached this state of being around the world (so they say). How do they live? From the energy they get from sunlight, and from spiritual energy. None of them, nor those who aspire to emulate them, deny that this is a religious experience.

Me? I'll keep eating my apple pies and and turkey burgers and bbq ribs and chicken stir-fry and meatballs and . . . hmm, time to plan dinner, I guess :)

Breatharian

[magid.livejournal.com]

How do they live? From the energy they get from sunlight, and from spiritual energy.

So they turn into do-gooding plant-people?

Pass the burgers!
µ

[pinkfish.livejournal.com]

The apple story you tell is a typical one; Red Delicious -> Disappointment -> Granny Smith (early-mid 80's, right?) -> Apple Winter (mid-late 80's, early 90') -> Renaissance with Fuji (mid-late 90's) -> current disillusionment. This is my own story (with a brief interruption in the very early 80's by an English apple called the Bramley, that I haven't seen anywhere since).

In about 1998, my friend #5 (yes, another rapper dancer. It's gonna get confusing, since more than one person dances each position, but that is how one suffers for art) and I were sharing an apple, and offered a bite to #3, who said, "no, I don't really like apples". #5 responded eagerly, "when did you last have one? Apples have become good again!," referring to the end of the "apple winter". She and I had both found that except for the heyday of Granny Smiths in the 80's, apples had lost their crunch, their combination of tart and sweet, their flavor, everyting. Until we found the Fuji.

Fuji's have been around since the 50's, but not much in this country; they got big here in the 90's. For many years, they were just the most reliable apple; always crisp, always flavorful. They are still pretty good.

But I have had a few Fuji duds lately, and I have noticed that Bread and Circus doesn't carry them all the time, which suggests that they have found bad batches (B&C tries to carry only excellent produce; they don't always succeed, but if it doesn't meet their standards, it really is unlikely to meet mine!). So I have been exploring apples again.

I have never been attracted to Pink Ladys, and am not surprised that it was disappointing. My favorite right now is the Gala; B&C even put them in the spot where the Fuji's used to be. I don't think I actually like them as well as the old Fuji's, but they are pretty good.

In the early 90's, I was living in Europe, dating a man from England. We drove past an empty field, which he told me used to be an orchard. However, these were the days of the EU produce labelling laws, and it seems that the apples that this orchard grew could not be marketed as "apples" in the EU, because they didn't meet the standards (there were stories about French Cheeses that weren't marketable, I don't know if they were true). A lot of this stuff got worked out eventually, but not before Brussells became a dirty word in many circles, and the Swiss sat around doing what they do best, feeling smug. Their Pflumli, Egli and Nussli didn't have to jumpli through any EU hooplis. I bet the apples we drove past really could be sold in the EU as apples, but the poor farmer who owned it couldn't take the risk while they were sorting it out.

My former housemate G used to call me a "macrobiotic freak" because I would only buy fruit in season. Okay, I guess I'm a freak.

Typical apple consumer

[magid.livejournal.com]

I suppose I am a typical apple consumer, or have been until now. I didn't think the Pink Ladies were particularly beautiful, but they did seem firm enough that they might've been good eating. And Galas are pretty nice, though I've occasionally had a less-than-good one.

I've never heard of the Bramley. Was it available in the States, or only in England?

B&C has wonderful produce, but I admit to being cheap enough that there are some things I tend not to buy there. OTOH, that's the only place I've found organic citrus, which I prefer if I'm going to use the zest.

I think Fujis are from NZ. That leaves me wondering what their "season" is. Do you buy fruit that's in season here, or in season where it's grown, or both?

And no, I don't think that puts you over to freakhood. I am not so principled, having been known to get citrus out of season sometimes, for instance (though it they're from CA, the question of in/out of season arises again, I suppose).

Have you tried a Macoun? I haven't seen them in the stores, but a number of orchards around grow them.

(And again I find myself with rambly, disjointed comments on your fluid prose. Feh.)
e

Re: Typical apple consumer

[pinkfish.livejournal.com]

I only saw Bramleys in England, and then only in the early 80's; when I went back in the 90's, the EU regulations were coming through, so I wasn't surprised that nobody had heard of them. They were very big, green apples, with tough skins and very firm flesh. I never tried to eat one raw, but they made the best apple pie ever.

I have seen Macouns somewhere, perhaps at B&C. I don't know if I have tried one; I will have to check them out.

[teddywolf.livejournal.com]

I have one breed of apple I've been extremely happy with and haven't seen on the list yet: Honeycrisp. I first tried one out in western MA and it was an incredible apple, flavorful, crisp, juicy and solid flavor. Last time I found some were in Harvest Co-op last year; I don't see them in off-season. I am planning on heading there and scoring me a bag sometime. Brookfield Orchards doesn't have them at all, which is a big shame.

[pinkfish.livejournal.com]

I've never heard of this one - when is its season, Sept/Oct?

[teddywolf.livejournal.com]

Yes, though I believe I have seen some in late August and early November. It is a fantabulous apple - IMO it beats Cortlands and Macouns hands down, and I'm still fond of Cortlands.