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The Awful Reign of the Red Delicious (2014)

theatlantic.com

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Re: The Awful Reign of the Red Delicious (2014)

#21

Post by logfromblammo »

artursapek wrote: post #4

My son and I have settled on Gala and Fuji as our go-tos are the farmers market. I actually arrived at the same conclusion as this article about "Red Delicious" - it certainly is red and that's the most that can be said of it.

Red Delicious are absolutely the best apples for throwing at your enemies. They are also the best fruit to be stacked on a cart and driven through during the car chase scene of an action movie. They are also quite useful for making your business look like it has made a token effort towards providing fruits and vegetables for customers.

They are certainly poorly suited for actual eating.

Fujis have a good taste/price ratio, making them my default value option. Honeycrisps are great, but currently rather expensive. Hopefully that price can come down as more Red Delicious orchards are demolished and replaced.

The most bizarre part of the article is where it says people buy Red Delicious and just throw them away. While that would be insane for private residences, the Red Delicious is somewhat of a symbolic icon for "fruit". If you manage a convenience store, truck stop, or hotel breakfast nook, you can buy one Red Delicious and keep it around for a few months, secure in the knowledge that no one will be foolish enough to eat it. And the whole time it is not being eaten, you can advertise that you offer "fresh fruit".

Just look at your fruit at home. All that stuff gets eaten and replaced. If you go out on the road, the standard fruit basket becomes Red Delicious apples, small, hard oranges, and bananas--literally the three cheapest fruits you can buy in any grocery store. And the apples might as well be wooden apples, painted red, because when the bananas and oranges go, they remain.

Re: The Awful Reign of the Red Delicious (2014)

#22

Post by nkozyra »

PhasmaFelis wrote: post #9
psyc wrote: post #6

Huh. I guess there are people who moralize about apple varieties.

Lamenting that a clearly inferior product dominates a market is not "moralizing".

It's not my favorite, but there's no objective metric for discerning apple "quality."

One man's red delicious is another man's ambrosia (apple, my favorite variety)

Re: The Awful Reign of the Red Delicious (2014)

#24

Post by VLM »

The article seems oriented toward raw consumption, I like to experiment with food canning and I've made many single variety batches of applesauce to experiment with. Pure grannies are a little acidic to me. My kids like red delicious applesauce, for something thats basically sweet with a texture its not bad. Ida Red results in an extremely pale nearly white applesauce which is interesting looking but the taste is boring. I'd have to find my notes I've experimented with most every variety at one time or another. Its a fun relaxing hobby.

Something I like about home canning my own applesauce is bug-leg-free applesauce is commercially unavailable in stores, its safe to eat buggy applesauce but pretty gross once you have a source of bug-leg-free applesauce. Also if you follow the USDA/BallBook you can't vary lemon content for food safety reasons but you can vary cinnamon and its an eternal experiment to try different ratios. Also there are USDA approved low/no sugar applesauce recipes but in the store you can only buy corn syrup or artificial sweetener applesauce.

Anyway to make a long story short, store applesauce is gross, few hobbies are as delicious as home canning applesauce, and I've had "OK" results with red delicious in applesauce form. Its not pure red evil or whatever as the article claims.

Next story, lets debate Concord grapes, vs Flame seedless, in raw and home canned jelly form.

Re: The Awful Reign of the Red Delicious (2014)

#26

Post by Yizahi »

I like these ones - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_Transparent Unfortunately they are hard to come by even locally in ex-USSR because they are extremely fragile and no market want to handle their transportation or storage.

If you'll ever visit ex-USSR in late summer or early autumn ask for "byeliy naliv" apples (meaning something like "white shine"). They are green to white in color (more white as they are more ripe) and not very hard when ripe.

Re: The Awful Reign of the Red Delicious (2014)

#27

Post by kbutler »

orky56 wrote: post #13

I happen to like Red Delicious since they produce a satisfying crunch without being tart (like green apples) or mushy (like gala). I'm surprised this article is using a personal preference to criticize an entire variety and industry.

As someone who loves textures of foods, I empathize with the 'crunch' comment - though I will note that the only commendation you made about the flavor was expressing the Red Delicious's lack of flavor...

I liked Red Delicious back in the early 80s, but I noticed by the late 80s that they were becoming less flavorful, and tougher skinned. Now, the crunch and the visual is about all the red delicious has going for it.

I haven't seen Jonagold mentioned, but it's another one I like (though it doesn't store particularly well).

Re: The Awful Reign of the Red Delicious (2014)

#29

Post by rdiddly »

inanutshellus wrote: post #23
psyc wrote: post #6

Huh. I guess there are people who moralize about apple varieties.

I don't understand what you're trying to say. How is morality relevant at all here?

Not the parent but I'll take a stab at this anyway. None of this is actually about moralizing, but very much about signaling that one is part of the cohort of "discerning" consumers (who wouldn't be caught dead, darling, eating a Red Delicious), and not among those great unwashed backwoods jerkwater hordes who eat them because they don't know any better. Hence the religion-like simplicity of the message "red delicious bad" which bears some similarity to a moral pronouncement while not actually being one.

Whatever. Red Delicious, Gala, even Mackintosh (remember them? usually for pie)... they're all good. Red Delicious is unfashionable, plain and simple. I find them great, when fresh. They get mealy/mushy when they've been sitting around too long.

Re: The Awful Reign of the Red Delicious (2014)

#30

Post by cooperadymas »

VLM wrote: post #24

The article seems oriented toward raw consumption, I like to experiment with food canning and I've made many single variety batches of applesauce to experiment with. Pure grannies are a little acidic to me. My kids like red delicious applesauce, for something thats basically sweet with a texture its not bad. Ida Red results in an extremely pale nearly white applesauce which is interesting looking but the taste is bor…

I've made apple sauce a few times for near-immediate consumption (over the course of maybe a week). There is a big, notable difference in taste and quality from the store-bought. Might be time to try canning it for longer term consumption.

However, stores near here do carry a no sugar added bottle of applesauce. That's all we ever buy, and I can't imagine why they would even consider adding sugar/corn syrup. I like making it at home because I can play with the tartness a little more by adding in some grannies, and I like to leave in the skin for the added nutrients.

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