How do you like them apples?

When it comes to apples, I’m definitely a McIntosh kind of gal. Maybe it’s because it’s what I grew up with. (The Mac is the most popular apple in New England.) I had my first early Mac a couple of weeks back. Yum!

I’ve tried other apples over the years, and they’ve mostly been likable enough. But the Mac remains the apple of my eye, my fridge, my tummy.

 

The only apple I actively dislike is the Delicious which, IMHO is anything but. Thus I was in complete agreement with an article from HuffPo - This Is Why Red Delicious Apples Suck So Hard – that my sister Trish (and fellow McIntosh fan-girl) sent my way.

Bland, sometimes cardboardy in texture and usually covered in wax, they’re still found in gas stations, in bowls at the reception desks of fancy hotels and, yes, in brown bag school lunches. But who likes to eat them?

The thing about Delicious apples is that they’re kind of the pretty face of apples. They tend to look beautiful. The kind of apple that Eve could easily get Adam to take a bite out of. Yet to me they’re overly sweet and generally sort of grainy,mealy.

The one positive use I’ve seen them deployed for was at the late (and not particularly lamented) all-you-can-eat Rhode Island restaurant, Custy’s. To keep their lines organized, Custy’s had those velvet rope and stanchion separators that you see (or used to) in movie theaters. Topping off each stanchion was a perfectly formed, thing of beauty Delicious apple. Good place for them.

It turns out that a lot of people share my feelings about Delicious apples. So, how’d they get so popular?

“In the 1950s, as Red Delicious was developing, there was a major shift in the way Americans bought food,” [Michigan apple grower and fellow Delicious hater Mike] Beck says. “Previously, people would buy food right from the farm or at farmers markets until the advent of good refrigeration and the grocery store chains. So people started buying with their eyes. The Red Delicious, without a doubt, is a pretty apple. It’s gorgeous and very inviting, but it’s kind of like you think you’re buying a Corvette, and then you get into a Chevette.”

That’s what you get for going with the pretty face, the superficial.

Americans, however, are coming around, and the Delicious is declining in popularity. Much of what’s grown is exported to the Pacific Rim, Europe, and Mexico. Poor folks! Guess they haven’t had the opportunity to bite into a Brookfield Orchard McIntosh, right off the tree.

So the answer to the question, how do you like them apples? Depends on the variety. Yes to the Mac and any close relations. The Delicious? Pitooey!