Malus Aforethought

[steepholm]

My apple-buying habits have changed over the years. Back in the day, I remember feeling that Golden Delicious apples were the bee's knees, but now I'd only eat one of the pallid pap globes if desperate. What changed - my taste, or the strain? Reliability is another factor. At its best, nothing beats a Cox's Orange Pippin - which is also the most beautiful of apples, appearing to have rolled out of a Chardin - but it often isn't at its best, and when it falls short it can be a very ordinary fruit indeed. Pink Lady and Granny Smith are similarly variable, both suffering a tendency to waxiness that can lead to heartbreaking disappointment, especially in the case of the pricey Pink Lady. In recent years, I've found Jazz offers the best overall combination of taste, texture and reliability, but it's usually quite expensive. Braeburn too is reliable, if not quite as tasty. Royal Gala is better than Golden Delicious, but still disappointingly bland. And then there's Russet, which offers the apple equivalent of Rupert Brooke's "rough male kiss of blankets" - a lovely apple, but not for every day.

What are your dessert apple choices? How do you rate the ones I've mentioned, and which others would you recommend?



[Poll #1901037]

Comments

[nineweaving.livejournal.com]

Malo: I would rather be
Malo: In an apple tree
Malo: Than a naughty boy
Malo: In adversity

I have a book of cultivars (like these, but with paintings), most of which I've never tasted. I am fond of a Macoun. They're the falliest apple: not mists-and-mellow-fruitfulness, but a sharp-sweet crunch.

Nine

[steepholm.livejournal.com]

Falls and apples ever did go together. (Was that boy in the apple tree named Felix Culpepper?)

[joyeuce]

I have never before come across anyone who knew this rhyme! In the version my father taught me, the last two lines were:

Malo: Than a wicked man
Malo: In damnesiam!

[nineweaving.livejournal.com]

There's a delicately creepy setting for that rhyme by Benjamin Britten: he's given it to the haunted child Miles in his opera of The Turn of the Screw.

Nine

[nightspore.livejournal.com]

Yes, I was going to mention. Miles pronounces them all the same way, but that's wrong. I mean in reality. In opera it's right.

[ethelmay.livejournal.com]

Macouns, yes, I remember that name now. (I am terrible at remembering names of foods, for some reason. Aphasia culinaria, or something. Fortunately my husband is pretty good at it.)

[nightspore.livejournal.com]

Mea pater mater malum est.

[nightspore.livejournal.com]

Which being translated out of the original tongue, and the translation diligently compared, yields:

"Come father, mother is eating an apple."