I find that red delicious actually tastes quite good if you manage to eat it before it becomes mealy. Sweet, juicy, crisp bite. The problem is just that they become mealy relatively quickly.
Red delicious apples weren’t always horrible
121–130 of 257 posts
Re: Red delicious apples weren’t always horrible
#122Earlier quoted context omitted.
Nearly nobody under the age of 35 is aware that popcorn used to taste like corn. Not like modern ears of corn, which are bred mostly for sweetness; more like tortilla chips, whose corn is still (somehow) cultivated for corn flavor. Corny. [edit] … also I’m baffled by how, every time I “hold the tomatoes” on my burger or salad, someone will invariably say “don’t you like tomatoes?” and I have to go on this dumb rant a…
I always thought tomatoes were pretty good and then I had tomatoes in Europe.
Anyone can grow a pot of heirloom tomatoes outside in the summertime and end up with tomatoes that blow everything at the supermarket out of the water, if you can manage the pests. You can get pretty great produce at certain farmers markets, too.
Re: Red delicious apples weren’t always horrible
#123Earlier quoted context omitted.
Its not just the perfect look that Red Delicious was bred for but shelf life. Those things take forever to rot compared to other apples and hide bruising, but they end up with dry mealy texture and very thick waxy skin. They were optimized for apple sellers not apple eaters.
What's ironic about that is that when I bought my first such apple, I thought it must have been old as it was so mealy. What you're saying makes a lot of sense though. I equally remember having a loaf of square bread that comes in plastic (called 'toast bread' in a lot of Europe) lying around for over a month and I could not spot any mould and it was also still soft. It did not taste like 'real' bread even when fresh…
US agriculture is seasonal and overproduces, a lot of the excess is stored for months in cold houses and sold over the course of the year. Your apple you just bought could very well be nearly a year old. This is why I've been moving to farmers markets. That's where the flavor is.
Re: Red delicious apples weren’t always horrible
#124As a kid, I was a fan of Golden Delicious, while others criticised it for being too mealy. That wasn't my experience, at least at first. Eventually I encountered increasingly mealy Golden "Delicious", and started favouring other apples. Even the cheapest apples here, like Elstar and Jonagold, are pretty good in comparison. I wonder if it's the fate of any breed to eventually be bred for looks instead of taste. If you…
> I wonder if it's the fate of any breed to eventually be bred for looks instead of taste. No, fruit trees are predominantly propagated by cloning, by grafting branches into a root stock. This method has been used already in prehistoric times. New varieties are created by producing seeds, but then they are no longer called the same "breed". There is a big element of luck involved due to cross pollination and only spe…
I may be misinterpreting, but I think the comment you replied to implies natural(artificial?)-selection at the supermarket-selection level; not actual breeding of the trees.
Re: Red delicious apples weren’t always horrible
#125As a kid, I was a fan of Golden Delicious, while others criticised it for being too mealy. That wasn't my experience, at least at first. Eventually I encountered increasingly mealy Golden "Delicious", and started favouring other apples. Even the cheapest apples here, like Elstar and Jonagold, are pretty good in comparison. I wonder if it's the fate of any breed to eventually be bred for looks instead of taste. If you…
> I wonder if it's the fate of any breed to eventually be bred for looks instead of taste. No, fruit trees are predominantly propagated by cloning, by grafting branches into a root stock. This method has been used already in prehistoric times. New varieties are created by producing seeds, but then they are no longer called the same "breed". There is a big element of luck involved due to cross pollination and only spe…
Individual branches have mutations, and those are cloned for new trees. Which is what the article is about. It doesn't take seeds to have this behavior.
Re: Red delicious apples weren’t always horrible
#126As a kid, I was a fan of Golden Delicious, while others criticised it for being too mealy. That wasn't my experience, at least at first. Eventually I encountered increasingly mealy Golden "Delicious", and started favouring other apples. Even the cheapest apples here, like Elstar and Jonagold, are pretty good in comparison. I wonder if it's the fate of any breed to eventually be bred for looks instead of taste. If you…
> I wonder if it's the fate of any breed to eventually be bred for looks instead of taste. No, fruit trees are predominantly propagated by cloning, by grafting branches into a root stock. This method has been used already in prehistoric times. New varieties are created by producing seeds, but then they are no longer called the same "breed". There is a big element of luck involved due to cross pollination and only spe…
Yet the article talks about breeding Red Delicious for looks and transportability. If it was only cloning, Red Delicious would still taste the same way it did way back then.
Re: Red delicious apples weren’t always horrible
#127Earlier quoted context omitted.
I guess that means you had them in a Mediterranean country, because elsewhere in Europe they still are rather bland in my (northern European) opinion
Yes this is the key. Most of Europe is in the same boat. Eating produce in Greece however is astoundingly better. Italy was less consistent on this but still better. Which leads me to wonder if its really the genetic choices or is it just something about the farming, nutritional rich soils, or transportation/timing?
Sunshine is the other big variable. Most fruit will only get sweet during ripening if it's receiving enough sunlight. This is why red grapes are seldom grown in northern latitudes - their dark skin blocks sunlight and prevents them from sweetening during ripening.
Re: Red delicious apples weren’t always horrible
#128> “It turns out that a lot of the genes that coded for the flavor-producing compounds were on the same chromosomes as the genes for the yellow striped skin,” Traverso explains, “so as you favored the more consistently colored apples, you were essentially disfavoring the same genes that coded for great flavor. This is also why so many cultivars of tomato and cucumber taste like moist cardboard. Once you taste what the…
Nearly nobody under the age of 35 is aware that popcorn used to taste like corn. Not like modern ears of corn, which are bred mostly for sweetness; more like tortilla chips, whose corn is still (somehow) cultivated for corn flavor. Corny. [edit] … also I’m baffled by how, every time I “hold the tomatoes” on my burger or salad, someone will invariably say “don’t you like tomatoes?” and I have to go on this dumb rant a…
A sandwich place near me does BLTs, but ONLY in the summertime when the tomatoes are worthy. I love it.
Re: Red delicious apples weren’t always horrible
#129Earlier quoted context omitted.
because it doesn't even have the sugar water taste going for it. it been so over optimzed for appearance shape and shelf life that the texture has become unpleasant, the flavor is non existent, and for years it was "The Apple" you have generations that had one of those awful thing sent in their school lunch every day (and usually threw it away without a single bite), that have grown up had enough of this garbage appl…
I can taste the sugar water in Red Delicious and I actually enjoy the texture, but I understand the rest.
I specifically use them only for cooking. The extra sugar in the other apples can caramelize too quickly for many dishes.
Re: Red delicious apples weren’t always horrible
#130I absolutely love apples, and those Red Delicious are quite delicious No idea what the article is complaining about
Wonder if it is a regional thing? Maybe there are several varieties of red delicious? But they all get the same name? In the area I live in now they are fairly bland and do not taste very good. But when I was a kid we would goto nebraska city and get a couple of bushels of them and those were very good otherwise we would not have bought that many.