Common Cuisine |

I read an interesting article last summer about the decline of the Red Delicious apple. Apparently the variety we get in our markets today is a far cry from the apple people fell in love with a hundred years ago. In response to consumer demand, growers developed the apple to have a more appealing bright red color and more durable thick skin.

Reds do last up to a year in cold storage, and make a beautiful display. However, due to playing with the variety maybe too much, the quality of Red Delicious has declined significantly in the last 20 to 30 years, to the point that few people are buying them anymore. Other varieties like Gala and Fuji are on the rise as the dominant sweet red apples.

As I read this article I began to understand why, for so many years, I have been disinterested in Red Delicious apples to the point that I will hardly eat red apples at all for fear of eating a Red Delicious by mistake. But it turns out the problem is not so much with the apple itself as the fact that it is difficult to tell when to harvest it for optimum flavor.

This is good news, because one of my three apple trees is a Red Delicious. It did not bear fruit this year due to severe wind damage last year. And I am glad for that because my Golden Delicious tree went haywire, producing several thousand apples by my best estimate. I have had enough to do with the fruit from one obnoxious tree and one tree (a Jonagold) with light production. But after reading this article, I have hope that I can harvest that Red Delicious tree next year in waves, and catch as many apples as possible at their peak of ripeness and flavor. I’ll let you know how they grow.