
The Awful Reign of the Red Delicious - normanlee
http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2014/09/the-evil-reign-of-the-red-delicious/379892/?single_page=true
======
pjungwir
Good riddance. Red delicious apples get mealy fast, sometimes before you buy
them. I kept waiting for the article to acknowledge this, and the closest it
came was "tastes have sifted." Bah, who has ever liked a mealy apple? Gala,
Fuji, and especially Braeburn stay crisp and tasty longer.

Strangely, yellow delicious stays good despite getting softer. It doesn't get
mealy, just softer, and it's still great to eat.

~~~
mrtimo
Red delicious are actually quite good right after they are picked.

Perhaps the reason why we don't like Red delicious is the 'paradox of choice'.
40 years ago, there were perhaps 4 varieties of apples on average in a grocery
store, today perhaps 9 or 10. Perhaps with the sweeter, crispier apples
brought by advances in Agri-tech the Red Delicious has become lackluster in
comparison.

~~~
Jedd
This doesn't sound right, but perhaps you are in an atypical part of the
world.

40 years ago you would, I expect, find a larger variety of apples, most of
them heirloom (ie. open pollinated, with a history you could trace back
several hundred years, and were free to propagate at home) at the 'average
grocery store'.

Now you'll typically find a selection of apple varieties that were bred
relatively recently, selected for shipping and long storage life (ie. ability
to retain colour, sweetness (not necessarily flavour), resistance to bruising,
consistent colour and shape, russets are eschewed as they're not currently
popular, etc).

To the east of London, UK, there's a (somewhat) government-run farm at
Faversham, where they are maintaining a mighty collection of apples -
somewhere around 2,500 distinct varieties. They also maintain around 700
cherry, and 500 pears, amongst other fruits ... many of which they can trace
back several hundred years.

Complaining about just one apple variety seems to be totally missing the point
- you can most certainly find, with some small effort, an apple that
_perfectly_ suits your idea of the perfect specimen.

~~~
eitally
As an American who's almost 40 and remembers grocery shopping with my mom as a
young child, there were typically only three common apple varieties available:
red delicious, golden/yellow delicious, and granny smith. That's it.

Nowadays, even at my crappy Food Lion, I can find those three, plus usually
2-3 additional. At local higher end groceries, I can find 8-10.

At my local farmers' market, I can find 20-30 (when they're in season).

My personal favorites are Honeycrisp, Jonagold, and Pink Lady, but since
Jonagolds aren't common in my state and Honeycrisps are a restricted patent
and very expensive, we usually buy gala, fuji, and sometimes braeburn.

------
nl
Apples!

For a while a couple of years back I was an Apple geek (the fruit, not the
computer).

It's good to see that the Gala, Braeburn and Fuji apples have already been
mentioned.

If you can find them, Jazz apples[1] are a must-try. They are a cross between
the Gala and the Braeburn, and the most amazingly _crisp_ apple I've ever
tried. I think the flavour isn't quite as good as a Gala, but that crispness
is the complete opposite of the Red Delicious.

They are good looking apples, too.

The Pink Lady apple is also a good one. I think that might have my favorite
flavour.

[http://www.orangepippin.com/](http://www.orangepippin.com/) is a good place
to learn about the varities available.

[1]
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jazz_(apple)](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jazz_\(apple\))

~~~
hcrisp
Yes, I second the Jazz recommendation. They are as good as, if not better
than, Honeycrisp, and usually cheaper. SweeTango was supposed to rival
Honeycrisp, but never lived up to the expectation, IMO.

~~~
rmcpherson
As a connoisseur of Minnesotan apples, I've always thought the SweeTango was a
perfect iteration on the HoneyCrisp. Both are good though.

~~~
kaitai
If you like slightly tart ones, you need to find a Prairie Spy. One of the
first U of MN varieties, never sold in stores.

------
davidw
Interesting, and I think it reflects a broader culinary trend in the US:
people are waking up to good food.

As a kid in the late 80ies, in a medium sized town in Oregon, real Italian
ingredients were not to be had for love or money, even if my parents even knew
what they were. Now, when I go home to visit, they have real Italian cheeses,
prosciutto, and even some mozzarella flown in from Italy. Local copycats (my
Italian friends all get a kick out of "Oregonzola") are also on the rise,
which is a good thing in terms of bringing down the prices and increasing
availability to a wider swath of people.

My wife and I have discussed a few ideas for food companies that we might be
able to start in the US.

------
Taylorious
I don't understand why every time I read an article that has something to do
with apples the writer bashes on red delicious apples and acts like people are
being manipulated into eating them. I love apples and I eat a large variety of
them, and though I don't get red delicious the majority of the time, they are
still really good and are a good goto apple because they are so consistent. I
love how they are crisp, that they have a thick skin, and that they aren't
overly sweet or sour. Plus, they are really cheap and are often good sized.
Varieties like honey crisps can be tasty, but they can be quite a bit more
money and they are often so sweet that it's almost like a dessert.

~~~
sk5t
Speaking only for myself, the red delicious takes up valuable market real
estate that could better be used by some other variety of apple not resembling
fresh styrofoam dunked in sugar water--I resent the red delicious for its
combination of prominent place, flashy looks, nondescript flavor, and
repugnant texture.

The red delicious stands apart for its extreme crispness, and to those
sensitive to it, biting in is like nails on a chalkboard. Also, it seems like
one chew releases all the moisture, leaving a mouthful of dry bleh-ness with
which to contend.

~~~
JoeAltmaier
Be fair. Most grocery store fruit is a gamble - you know that going in. But
Red Delicious, properly ripe and picked at the right time, can live up to its
name. A perfect one is really, really good.

~~~
mark-r
I live in an area that grows a lot of apples - in fact the Honeycrisp was
developed only a few miles from my home. But I don't think I've ever seen a
locally grown Red Delicious. As a kid I fell for the storyline "they're
delicious", but as I got older I realized just how poor those ones from the
supermarket are. I avoid them at all costs now.

------
durkie
Go pick apples that grow near you! You don't have to go to a farm to do this
in a lot of places.

We pick apples all around Atlanta (and donate them to local food banks) and
they are super interesting -- Apple trees that are grown from a seed (a
"pippin") will produce an apple that has never before existed
([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple#Cultivation](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple#Cultivation)),
so we get lots of strange varieties from the fruits we pick around town :
large, potato-shaped apples that are just dripping with juice but almost
tasteless. Golf-ball sized apples that are green-skinned but pink-fleshed.
Super delicious ("grocery store quality") apples with strange skin patterns
and lots in between. There's tons of fun stuff to find out there.

~~~
coldpie
Curious for my own sake, do you just pick from random trees you find? Do you
worry about property rights at all, or is this on public land?

------
DirtyAndy
As a kid in the 1970's living in New Zealand most of our local apples (NZ
grows a lot of apples) were green. Imported Red Delicious used to sit in the
supermarket looking so red and beautiful and screaming to be purchased, which
occasionally I could get my mother to do. I don't remember them being floury,
but they were always sweeter than the green apples - a real memory of
childhood.

But now in comparison to Gala, Fuji, Braeburn and others, Red Delicious seem
floury, the skin is too thick and the flavour no where near as crisp and clean
as the other varieties. There's also a lack of airmiles on most of these as we
grow them here.

35 years on I don't think my kids have had a Red Delicious, and certainly not
something I will miss if I never have another one.

------
chrismealy
Honeycrisp apples are amazing. If you've never had one before you're in for a
big surprise.

~~~
freditup
They are great apples, but they're also about 3x as expensive as Red Delicious
apples (at least where I am in the US).

~~~
jcromartie
You'd have to pay me to eat a Red Delicious if Honeycrisp is in season.

------
dirktheman
I saw a fascinating documentary about apples last year. It traces the back the
roots of all apple races to Kazachstan, where the film maker finds a botanical
garden with ancient races. Unfortunately, nothing is documented there.

It's in dutch, but the images are beautiful, too: [http://www.npo.nl/fresco-s-
paradijs-2/20-10-2013/VPWON_11752...](http://www.npo.nl/fresco-s-
paradijs-2/20-10-2013/VPWON_1175269)

------
JeremyMorgan
Interesting read for sure, but it's just like any other product. Things that
are nice looking, cheap, and plentiful will always be consumed by the mass
market, even if it's lower quality. "Good enough" rules the market for nearly
every product out there, at least in the number of units sold. Why would
apples be any different?

"Two buck Chuck" wine is the top selling wine year after year, but it's
nowhere near the best. I consider Red Delicious "good enough" apples, and
they're plentiful. Fiji and Honeycrisp will be my choice when they're
available, but that isn't always the case.

------
iopq
American mass-produced fruits are in general disgusting. They are tasteless
and watery. Strawberries are probably the worst offenders. In Ukraine,
strawberries are very sweet and much smaller. The American strawberries just
seem full of water.

~~~
jerf
I've long had a joke theory that every fruit produces a certain fixed amount
of flavor, and the bigger you breed it to be, the more watered down it gets.
Sure, this is biological gibberish, but for a joke theory, it does seem to fit
most of the facts.

On a less jokey note, I have found myself wondering how much gene engineering
it would take to fix the mismatch between size and flavor.

~~~
bduerst
You're not that far off from the truth.

Typically the fruit of the plant contains a lot of chemical energy in the form
of sugars. Plants that have been selectively bred for hardiness (thicker skin,
longer ripening periods, etc.) expend more on those traits as opposed to
making more chemical energy in the fruit.

~~~
jerf
And that is probably much closer to the real reason. (And I'm saying
"probably" just to hedge since I don't truly _know_ , but it seems very likely
to me.)

But I sort of get a kick out of imagining a meta-physical level of "flavor per
fruit" out there in the world.

Incidentally, part of what I wonder about gene engineering is whether we could
keep most of the hardiness, etc, and focus very tightly on putting in more
flavor compounds, instead of using the blunt stick of breeding and getting who
knows what other characteristics correlated in with that. Of course it won't
be free to the plant but we might still have some room for optimizing.

------
hoggle
Vote with your wallet. Lots of variety has been lost forever because old
breeds haven't been cultivated anymore.

There is an initiative here in Europe that tries to keep old true-to-seed
breeds alive but they have to fight the brutal lobbying of Monsanto and the
likes.

In the end it is our fault when we buy stuff for the wrong reasons (cheaper is
better, looks, etc).

Arche Noah:

"In the past 100 years we have lost about 75 percent of agricultural diversity
worldwide."

"Beginning of the (20th) century there were 2,000 apple varieties, today you
can find at the grocery store only max. 20 varieties."

[https://translate.google.com/translate?sl=auto&tl=en&js=y&pr...](https://translate.google.com/translate?sl=auto&tl=en&js=y&prev=_t&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.arche-
noah.at%2Fsortenerhaltung%2Fwozu-vielfalt&edit-text=)

Fun fact: these days Joe Cocker cultivates old tomato breeds on his farm in
Colorado and gets some of his seeds from the Arche Noah network.

~~~
skj
> "Beginning of the (20th) century there were 2,000 apple varieties, today you
> can find at the grocery store only max. 20 varieties."

Not that I disagree with the point, but I take issue with statements like this
one, which can be true yet completely misleading.

How many varieties were available in grocery stores in the beginning of the
20th century? How many apple varieties exist now?

I suppose you're comparing apples to apples, but not in the way that that
phrase is supposed to mean :)

------
clumsysmurf
If you eat the peel, Red Delicious has the highest level of antioxidants /
polyphenols of the apples tested. Not all apples commonly available were in
the lineup though, like Gala.

[http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/jf0346298](http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/jf0346298)

------
foz
There's a great BBC documentary called "Apples: British to the Core" [1] which
has a very nice look into the history of apples, how they were cultivated, and
how classic varieties are becoming lost. Everything leads back to the Cox
Orange Pippin.

I live in Europe now, and enjoy a wide variety of interesting regional apples.
Whenever I return to the USA I'm disappointed by the selection and quality of
apples available. Red and green. They look nice, but often are waxy and bland.

[1]
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JUAJ0F1oH-M](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JUAJ0F1oH-M)

~~~
pyre
Must depend on where you are. See this:

[http://portlandnursery.com/events/appletasting.shtml](http://portlandnursery.com/events/appletasting.shtml)

If they can procure 60 varieties, then it's definitely not at "US" thing.

------
jbuckner
I've always wondered why at almost every event where large quantities of
apples are given out, there's always Red Delicious. I see them and just keep
moving on. Really interesting (and unfortunate) story of them.

I'm curious if there are any early generation Red Delicious apple trees left
or if they've all become offspring of the selective breeding. I'd like to
taste one.

A few years ago I started seeking out good-tasting apples and kept a
spreadsheet to track my reviews. If you can get your hands on Jazz or Pacific
Rose apples, they are amazing!

------
jlawer
I have to say I love Red Delicious apples when they are fresh. They are the
worst for shelf life so you need to be careful, but I will take one at its
freshest over any other variety I have tasted.

------
chromaton
Here's a tip: try to find a large supermarket that caters to Asian customers
to buy your apples. The Buford Highway Farmer's Market here in Atlanta has a
great selection. They carry most of the varieties mentioned on this thread.

Another thing. Buy in season to get the best quality. Apple picking season is
the fall. As a bonus, you'll notice the price drop significantly when the crop
comes in.

------
roghummal
>At the supermarket near his home in central Virginia, Tom Burford likes to
loiter by the display of Red Delicious. He waits until he spots a store
manager. Then he picks up one of the glossy apples and, with a flourish,
scrapes his fingernail into the wax: T-O-M.

>“We can’t sell that now,” the manager protests.

>To which Burford replies, in his soft Piedmont drawl: “That’s my point.”

You're kidding, right?

------
elchief
I'll take a Spartan or nice n sour McIntosh any day over a mushy bruisy
oversweet red "delicious".

~~~
e40
I live in arguably the best place in the US for good produce (near Berkeley
Bowl and the gourmet ghetto), and I must say, I haven't had a good McIntosh
apple in years. Either they are just not around or they just don't taste like
the fantastic apples of 10-15 years ago.

Red Delicious were responsible for me hating apples as a kid. McIntosh were
responsible for me starting to love them again.

~~~
carlob
Good McIntosh are pretty common in NJ. I just couldn't seem to find them year
round. I wonder why that is.

------
rbobby
40 years ago red delicious were small with firm flesh and a great taste and
even better refrigerated. They were also uncommon and perhaps more expensive
than the locally grown McIntosh.

Now... red delicious are usually mealy and blandly sweet.

I really miss those oh so delicious apples of my youth.

~~~
jinushaun
I remember when red delicious we're small and crisp. At some point, they got
gigantic and mealy. So gross. I hope my favorite apples don't go down the same
path... Braeburns seem to be getting bigger and bigger...

You still can't beat wild apples though. Way better/complex flavor profile
than bland/uniform store ones.

------
gadders
For anyone that lives in the UK and loves apples, I would recommend the Apple
Festival held at Brogdale, near Faversham in Kent [1]. Brogdale is the home of
the UK's National Fruit Collection [2] and if you've ever wanted to have 30-40
varieties of apples and pears to taste and buy like a wine-tasting this is the
place to be.

[1]
[http://www.applefestivalkent.co.uk/search/label/Theapples](http://www.applefestivalkent.co.uk/search/label/Theapples)
[2]
[http://www.nationalfruitcollection.org.uk/](http://www.nationalfruitcollection.org.uk/)

------
brianbreslin
I remember growing up on red delicious in the 80s and 90s (my sis preferred
Granny Smith, so we had both at home). The day in the mid 90s my dad brought
home some new apples (Fuji and gala) was revelating. After that I could never
enjoy red delicious as much. I don't think I've willingly bought a red
delicious in ages.

If you've never tried it, manzano bananas are great too. They are tiny little
bananas that have a distinct apple flavor mixed in.

------
epaladin
I've never understood why Red Delicious were so popular. Now that I've been
living down the street from an orchard in upstate NY, I understand even less.
Orchards really seem to push Fuji around here- they seem to grow more of them
than anything else. I've always really like macs, and my wife got me into
macouns which are pretty similar.

------
sdm
Interesting read. I've always found Gala and Fuji too soft and lacking the
crispness of a Red Delicious. I have never been able to stand them. I can't
abide non-crisp apples.

I find the best apple for crispness and taste is the Cameo, followed by Granny
Smithes. Red Deliciouses still hold 3rd place when it come apple taste and
crispness for me.

~~~
fphhotchips
I've found that both Gala and Fuji vary heavily according to the time of year.
If I get them 'in season' [1], they're crisp and delicious. If I get them out
of season, they can be quite soft/floury.

It's been a long time since I had a soft Pink Lady though.

[1] I put that in quotes because I'm not sure whose season. I'm an Aussie, and
we can get them year round, so I figure we must be importing at some point. As
such, this may be a regional thing.

------
crymer11
Arkansas Black is one of my favorites. Not very common and usually only found
later in the season, but they keep for months.

~~~
discardorama
This. I came to talk up AB. For some weird reason, when I bite into them, I
get a hint of cardamom. They're my favorite by far.

------
thrownaway2424
The same thing has happened to pears (used to be hundreds of varieties widely
grown) and pork, which veered dangerously close to the color, texture, and
flavor of Styrofoam in the 90s before they started breeding some of the tasty
genes back in from the vestigial show pigs. Thank god for the 4-H breeders.

------
cafard
A half century ago and more, A.J. Liebling complained of the popularity of the
red delicious "which doesn't taste like an apple, and the yellow delicious,
which doesn't taste like anything." (Quoted from memory--I haven't seen my
copy of _Between Meals_ in a long time.)

------
shalmanese
The New Yorker had a fantastic article on the commercial side of developing
new species of apples a couple of years ago:
[http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2011/11/21/crunch](http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2011/11/21/crunch)

------
AlyssaRowan
The Red Delicious is a _terrible_ apple. Waxy and mushy and watery.

Try a Worcester Pearmain if you get a chance.

------
tehwalrus
Braeburns and Granny Smiths are the only apples we ever buy (sometimes
substitute Gala or Jazz for the Braeburns, if we can't find them). I've
literally _never_ eaten a deep red apple I liked, and I am a _big_ apple
eater. (UK)

------
legohead
This article confused the hell out of me. Since I don't eat apples but my kids
love them, I have purposely tried all the kinds of apples at the store. And
time and time again my kids prefer Red Delicious.

~~~
nshepperd
Might be related to the childhood preference for sweet foods - apparently Red
Delicious has high amounts of sugar, relative to other apple varieties. For
example, 14.8% sugar for "Early Red" variety[1], vs 10.4% average over all
kinds[2]. Maybe this is enough to explain it?

[1].
[http://www.researchgate.net/publication/49591548_Composition...](http://www.researchgate.net/publication/49591548_Compositional_Characteristics_of_Fruits_of_several_Apple_\(Malus_domestica_Borkh.\)_Cultivars/links/0deec51e784d64eb92000000)

[2].
[http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=1+apple](http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=1+apple)

------
roghummal
When I buy a red delicious down in the SV, it's fantastic.

I can't find a decent apple (of any variety) in SF. Granny, gala, delicious,
golden, they're all mealy and either overly sweet or tasteless.

What's the problem?

------
dghf
The Cox (Cox's Orange Pippin): sharp and crisp like an autumn morning.

------
RankingMember
After reading the article, I still don't get what he was proving by scratching
his initials into them in front of a grocery store manager.

------
irishloop
I've had lots of different kinds of apples. I like Red Delicious apples the
best. Is there something wrong with me?

------
rpupkin
The red delicious is a metaphor for the U$D. This is the work of Bolsheviks
advocating flight from the dollar toward a new reserve currency, concealed as
harmless information. Eden's door is Exit Only. Run from this serpent.

------
siliconc0w
It's clear this capitalism thing isn't working. New national mandate: all
products to be sold in identical opaque boxes. Marketing is outlawed and the
only allowed form of advertising is hiring Sam Waterston to dispassionately
read off the results of independent double blind studies your product has been
involved in.

