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Appalachian Apple hunter who rescued 1k ‘lost’ varieties (2021)

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Re: Appalachian Apple hunter who rescued 1k ‘lost’ varieties (2021)

#81

Post by sidewndr46 »

genocidicbunny wrote: post #26
leipert wrote: post #24

Kind of related: in former Eastern Germany they bred all kinds of new Pear varieties. Pears are a little more finicky than apples and the fruit bruise more easily. Furthermore a lot of the varieties will go bad really quickly, so you basically have to eat them from the tree. Because of those reasons there are just one or two varieties available in stores and there is not a lot of commercial interest in Pears. With th…

Serendipitous seeing this mentioned here after my father very recently mentioned how much he missed the variety of pears that he could get when he went on komandirovkas to the GDR.

I don't understand "komandirovkas" in this context. Was he a Warsaw pact or Soviet intelligence agent working in the GDR? Or was he West German but traveled to East Germany for one reason or another?

Re: Appalachian Apple hunter who rescued 1k ‘lost’ varieties (2021)

#83

Post by ggm »

I'm here to shout out about russets. Russetting is when the apple skin becomes like sandpaper. It typically becomes "rejected" fruit by shops, its seen as a no-no. But this ignores that russet apples exist as a sub-species, and are enjoyed by British people as an accompaniment to cheese. They are often very fragrent, and can have Nashi-like texture in the flesh.

I find it very odd it's universally regarded as an abnormality, when quite a lot of food speciation is this kind of divergence from the main path.

They're basically unavailable in Australia. I suspect if it occurs in fruit trees here it's rejected at farm gate, and if it occurs in import stocks the quarantine process rejects them.

Re: Appalachian Apple hunter who rescued 1k ‘lost’ varieties (2021)

#84

Post by garbagecoder »

thatfrenchguy wrote: post #25
mooreds wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Ironically, you will never find the best-tasting apples in your local grocery store. I'm not sure it's "ironic". I think it is a case of "you get what you optimize for". Grocery stores optimize for: * cost * transportability * shelf life * appearance And all for good reason! That's what makes money. Doesn't matter if you have the best tasting apple in the world if shipping it on a truck destroys 90% of them and you…

To be fair, to someone who was not born in the US and grew up eating apples from u-pick orchards, grocery store apples in CA have an awful apparence and shelf life and way too sugary taste, but this is likely a case of people buying what they are used to :)

There are u-pick orchards and farmers markets in California too.

Re: Appalachian Apple hunter who rescued 1k ‘lost’ varieties (2021)

#85

Post by JoeAltmaier »

jacquesm wrote: post #72
JoeAltmaier wrote: post #34

Used to walk a neighborhood near where we used to live near downtown. Go down a side street, at the end was a hayfield and a pond! In the middle of town. And by the pond, an apple tree. With apples the size of cannonballs. Big as your head. Somebody would stack the ones that fell into tripods. It was surreal. Anyway the place is developed now, the pond gone, the apple tree just a memory.

There is a strain of Golden Reinette that makes enormous apples, very tasty and great to make applesauce from. A bit on the sour side for many people but I love them. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_Reinette

That link says they're small. Hm.

Re: Appalachian Apple hunter who rescued 1k ‘lost’ varieties (2021)

#86

Post by jacquesm »

JoeAltmaier wrote: post #85
jacquesm wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is a strain of Golden Reinette that makes enormous apples, very tasty and great to make applesauce from. A bit on the sour side for many people but I love them. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_Reinette

That link says they're small. Hm.

Yes, they typically are. But there are certain variations that are really large, 15 to 20 cm diameter I've had (and no less tasty for their size, which is pretty rare). It's like a four person meal in one apple :)

They aren't all that popular because they bruise easily and aren't very pretty, dry skin, not glossy, dull colors, mostly yellow, dark green and brown. But I really like them.

Re: Appalachian Apple hunter who rescued 1k ‘lost’ varieties (2021)

#87

Post by genocidicbunny »

sidewndr46 wrote: post #81
genocidicbunny wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Serendipitous seeing this mentioned here after my father very recently mentioned how much he missed the variety of pears that he could get when he went on komandirovkas to the GDR.

I don't understand "komandirovkas" in this context. Was he a Warsaw pact or Soviet intelligence agent working in the GDR? Or was he West German but traveled to East Germany for one reason or another?

No much simpler than that. On-site work effectively, but more centrally-driven and controlled.

Re: Appalachian Apple hunter who rescued 1k ‘lost’ varieties (2021)

#88

Post by GnarfGnarf »

kdazzle wrote: post #65
GnarfGnarf wrote: post #6

Ironically, you will never find the best-tasting apples in your local grocery store. The tastiest apples are often smaller, brown or dark skin, not the big red 'juicy' apples the uninformed consumer thinks are the best. Viz. the Red "Delicious", whose flavor was bred out in favor of color and appearance. It is now insipid and flavorless. In the Annapolis Valley of Nova Scotia, the humble-looking Cox Orange is sweet a…

I actually bought a box of Cox Orange online from this orchard in VT. They were good, but the descriptions are always better. https://www.scottfarmvermont.com/coxs-orange-pippin Salt Spring Island, BC also seems to have a big heirloom apple thing going on, for any Van folks. (ex: I bought a couple of trees from this orchard https://www.saltspringapplecompany.com/ )

They're only good until December. They don't keep, so beware of how old the apple is.
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