While the rainbow of apples available at the supermarket doesn’t hold a candle to the thousands of varieties grown at orchards, there can still be a good dozen or more to pick from this time of year. It’s hard to know what’s worth reaching for, and what you should pass on by. That is, unless you did what I did, and asked a few apple farmers. These fruit aficionados have tasted more apples than the average shopper, and they have strong opinions about which are worth spending your grocery budget on.
After asking farmers what apples varieties shoppers should be paying more attention to, I asked the inverse: Which one should we all ignore? The answer was unanimous: Red Delicious.
Why You Shouldn’t Buy Red Delicious at the Grocery Store
“I think the last time I ate that apple was during the Reagan administration,” says Merrilee Olson, Managing Director of Gold Ridge Organic Farms Apple Press. Depending on how old you are, you might remember when bright and shiny Red Delicious apples dominated the produce aisle. They were the apple, with Granny Smith and maybe Golden Delicious alongside. Over the years, the Red Delicious marketshare has considerably shrunk as newer varieties have entered the market. But you’ll often still see the shiny red apples perched among the other fruit in the grocery store.
Why is Red Delicious less common now? And why do these apple farmers dislike it so much? “Over the years, commercial selection put a huge emphasis on making it that deep red, shiny, perfectly shaped apple everybody recognizes. The flavor and texture were sacrificed during that process,” says Gabriel Riley, Director of Living History at Riley’s Farm. “Modern Red Delicious apples are mealy, overly sweet, and somehow don’t taste like much of anything at the same time. I usually describe the flavor as indistinct sweetness with subtle notes of bleach and chemicals coming in later.”
Brooke Hazen, Farmer-Founder at Gold Ridge Organic Farms, emphasizes the cost of emphasizing looks (and lifespan) instead of flavor. He says, “Red Delicious single handedly nearly ruined the apple industry” when he was growing up, with the off-putting taste and mealy texture leading kids to refuse to eat apples altogether. Newer varieties, like Honeycrisp, revitalized the industry. “It’s an example of what happens when grocery stores seek red color over flavor and texture,” says Hazen.
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Not All Red Delicious Are Created Equal
When school groups visit Riley’s Farm, Riley will sometimes pick up Red Delicious apples from the supermarket so that kids can try them alongside the Red Delicious apples they grow at the orchard. Riley’s grows a predecessor of the current Red Delicious, which has more flavor and superior texture. Hazen agrees: “The original strain of Red Delicious is quite good. But they overbred it for color.”
If you’re visiting an orchard or have an apple farm that visits your local farmers market, give Red Delicious a try. You’ll be surprised that it bears the same name as the grocery market variety.
Read the original article on Simply Recipes