[HN Gopher] Red delicious apples weren't always horrible
___________________________________________________________________
Red delicious apples weren't always horrible
Author : kareemm
Score : 188 points
Date : 2021-08-02 02:17 UTC (20 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (newengland.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (newengland.com)
| ggm wrote:
| Apples, like Tomato are textbook examples of what mechanised
| volume production and warehousing does to "tasty". You can either
| have cheap food, or you can have good food, but good cheap food
| (where good means nutritious, delicious) is a lot harder and
| Cheap generally beats out good anyway, for most people.
|
| Remember in context, we probably waste over 30% of the produce
| along the supply chain, seeking absolutely "perfect" blemish free
| apples in a tray, wrapped in plastic, cheaper than before.
|
| Down here in Oz people have moved on from "organic is better for
| you" (debatable) to "I like it better" which being couched in the
| preference space, is less contestable. I do like things which
| taste bettter, and I am prepared to pay the premium to get them.
|
| I would be interested if the same process which took red
| delicious to stable, thick skinned, resilient also reduced
| nutritive value, we read increasingly that abundant food
| production often includes reducing actual food value (vitamins,
| minerals, antioxidents, flavones), in favour of mass production
| but I don't know how true it is.
| wyldfire wrote:
| > Remember in context, we probably waste over 30% of the
| produce along the supply chain, seeking absolutely "perfect"
| blemish free apples in a tray, wrapped in plastic, cheaper than
| before.
|
| over the last fifty years (or more?) grocery stores have
| evolved to have onsite bakeries/etc that take food that looks
| unappealing or would otherwise spoil soon and make them into
| prepared foods. Ready to eat meals, prepped ingredients, etc.
|
| Though it's probably only down to 30% _after_ efforts like
| these, though.
| Clewza313 wrote:
| Really? I had always assumed that unsold food gets thrown
| away (or maybe at a best case donated), and supply chains for
| bakeries etc are 100% separate by design.
| throwawayboise wrote:
| The local supermarket sells whole roasted chickens that you
| can buy hot and ready to eat. The ones that don't sell are
| deboned and shredded and used for chicken salad, barbeque
| "pulled" chicken, etc.
| evgen wrote:
| And these roasted chickens were previously on the shelves
| as raw whole chicken that was pulled and cooked when they
| hit their "sell by" date.
| namelessoracle wrote:
| No. Maybe at Whole Foods? But at Publix/Kroger the
| chickens were in a separate fridge that customers never
| got to buy from or access and the chickens went straight
| from the truck into that fridge.
|
| I say this as someone who worked Deli at Publix/Kroger
| and made those rotisserie chickens.
|
| The unused chickens would get used for chicken salads and
| stuff like that, but we also threw alot of them away too.
| Everything the deli used at Publix was used just for the
| deli, at no point did we take stuff about to expire and
| use it for our stuff except for bread that had only a
| couple of days left from the bakery. We had our fridge
| and supply section and the grocery had their own section
| and the two rarely met.
| lief79 wrote:
| Try finding chickens that small in the aisles.
|
| Depends on the grocery chain, but many places use
| separate stock for them.
| joe_the_user wrote:
| The interesting thing is that tomatoes first declined with
| mechanization and breeding for longevity and rose again. Once
| the mechanization process was done, they could be bred for
| taste again.
|
| Note: link about effort to revive tomato taste. That they
| succeeded is my personal judgement - ie, I think tomatoes taste
| good again.
|
| https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/geneticists-qu...
| ggm wrote:
| Another counter-example to my argument would be farm-frozen
| peas. They're unquestionably better in every sense, than
| canned peas, or dried peas, or peas which were not snap
| frozen at picking time. So not all food is worse for being
| industrialised. And as you point out now food handling
| methods have improved and food storage at scale through
| warehousing and distribution, there's every chance of quality
| coming back in as a price differentiator.
| agurk wrote:
| Interestingly I used to believe this, to the extent that I
| snubbed my nose at fresh peas in pods being sold in various
| countries I have lived in. I can't remember why, but I
| bought some last summer, and it was one of those moments
| when I realised how wrong I'd been. Frozen peas are a pale
| imitation of fresh peas. There is more variance - sometimes
| you'll get a pod with quite mealy peas, especially later in
| the season, but they're otherwise so good it makes up for
| it.
| addicted wrote:
| I don't think this is correct. We can have good food, and
| cheaper food than we have now without changing anything. At
| least as far as vegetables are concerned.
|
| The problem here is that groceries are tailoring their product
| not for the eater of the food, but for the buyer of the food.
| That results in a lot of vegetables/fruits being thrown away
| even after they've been selectively bred to look good vs
| tasting good.
|
| If the consumer was better educated and did not turn down food
| that did not look different, there would be a lot less wastage
| and the food would not need to be selectively bred to look
| good, but rather to taste good. Which means the food would
| taste better and less wastage would mean it's cheaper.
| TrispusAttucks wrote:
| Storage shelf life is also an important artificial selection
| pressure.
|
| The best vegetables are ones that are fresh out of the garden
| and ripened appropriately.
|
| That scenario really isn't compatible with the types of
| places tomatoes find themselves to be for sell at. Which is
| to say probably in a city very far from where they were
| grown.
| gowan wrote:
| imo the granny smith is the all time worse apple. always taste
| like a green apple (not trying to be ironic) and usually has a
| thick skin. just plain terrible might as well pick any apple
| variety before it is ripe.
|
| if you want a good green apple buy a newtown pippin.
| quesera wrote:
| I like 'em crisp and tart (and cold), so Granny Smith from the
| refrigerator is my default.
|
| I recall Newtown Pippins being a bit sweeter than I like, but I
| understand they vary. Is there a time of year, or another way
| to select for tartness?
| barathr wrote:
| I'd encourage everyone to check out California Rare Fruit Growers
| generally, and specifically this list of apples from a tasting a
| couple years ago:
|
| http://mbcrfg.org/apple-tasting-2019-rankings/
| koyote wrote:
| I think it's quite interesting that it's taken so long for a
| lackluster tasting food to decline in popularity.
|
| When I moved to the US from Western Europe, the relative
| difference in food quality was quite apparent and I distinctly
| remember noticing this first with the apples:
|
| At first I thought I might have chosen a bad batch, but after a
| couple of more buys I realised that these apples looked 'perfect'
| but always tasted foamy. I assumed what the article confirms: the
| apples were chosen for their looks and not their taste.
|
| What I think is weird about that mentality is that surely after
| the initial buy "oh these look declicious!", the consumer will
| try them and think "oh these don't taste good. I won't buy them
| again". Maybe it's just habit and it's taken a while for people
| to change that habit, especially if you never try anything
| different to compare it with.
|
| I know a lot of Americans that do not like apples because all
| they've ever had were the foamy ones.
| ajmurmann wrote:
| I read an article about the creator of the Honey Crisp and
| Cosmic Crisp. He chose a different licensing model that gives
| him more control for the Cosmic Crisp because according to him
| farmers tended to prefer the better looking, red apples which
| over time negatively impact what trees they'd use and how
| apples tasted even within the same variety. I'm not sure I
| understand the argument on a biological level fully, since I
| thought all apple trees of the same variety are clones, but I
| trust the leading expert got it right.
|
| If this is true we have some kind of tragedy of the commons
| within the growers of a specific variety. If the variety is
| still popular and known for good taste and your apples look the
| best, you win. Consumers won't pay enough attention to
| recognize that a given variety from a particular grower now
| tastes less good.
| brailsafe wrote:
| Honey Crisp are my favourite when they don't taste like dirt.
| smegger001 wrote:
| Its not just the perfect look that Red Delicious was bred for
| but shelf life. Those things take forever to rot compared to
| other apples and hide bruising, but they end up with dry mealy
| texture and very thick waxy skin. They were optimized for apple
| sellers not apple eaters.
| wombatmobile wrote:
| > They were optimized for apple sellers not apple eaters.
|
| The American food industry is optimised for sellers, not
| eaters [1].
|
| It is that way because the scalar nature of capital in
| America favours national businesses, not local businesses (or
| nutritional well being).
|
| Consumers fit in with this model out of necessity because
| they are workers who cannot allocate enough time to food
| shopping, preparation, and cooking. Instead, they minimise
| the time spent on food procurement by going to the
| supermarket, which is the ultimate expression of scalar
| capitalism.
|
| [1] Salt Sugar Fat: How the Food Giants Hooked Us
| ISBN1400069807 (ISBN13: 9781400069804), Michael Moss, Random
| House, 2013
| smegger001 wrote:
| oh absolutely and it is all most economically optimal and
| rational thing to do for everyone involved. It is just
| soulless and dismal. each step of the way is rational in
| isolation, its when it all together that it becomes an
| awful abomination .
| koyote wrote:
| What's ironic about that is that when I bought my first such
| apple, I thought it must have been old as it was so mealy.
|
| What you're saying makes a lot of sense though. I equally
| remember having a loaf of square bread that comes in plastic
| (called 'toast bread' in a lot of Europe) lying around for
| over a month and I could not spot any mould and it was also
| still soft. It did not taste like 'real' bread even when
| fresh of course...
| asdff wrote:
| US agriculture is seasonal and overproduces, a lot of the
| excess is stored for months in cold houses and sold over
| the course of the year. Your apple you just bought could
| very well be nearly a year old. This is why I've been
| moving to farmers markets. That's where the flavor is.
| aetherson wrote:
| Envy apples are good.
| brohoolio wrote:
| I do enjoy Envy apples but only if they are fresh. They fade
| faster than any other Apple I've encountered. By that I mean
| they lose their crispness and become undesirable.
|
| My personal favs are honey crisp and cosmic crisp, but I'd
| prefer an Envy only if it's fresh.
| smegger001 wrote:
| I prefer pink lady, or opal apple myself. I used to eat a lot
| of golden delicious but the local stores haven't carried them
| regularly for several years around here.
| aVx1uyD5pYWW wrote:
| I find that red delicious actually tastes quite good if you
| manage to eat it before it becomes mealy. Sweet, juicy, crisp
| bite. The problem is just that they become mealy relatively
| quickly.
| every wrote:
| Uh, winesap please...
| whynotkeithberg wrote:
| I was a massive fan of red delicious as a kid... I remember I
| continued buying them up until about 5-6 years ago because I
| always remembered the incredible taste but it never seemed to
| match up with my memories. I read a similar article 5-6 years ago
| and that's when I finally stopped buying. Now I mostly buy Pink
| Lady or Honeycrisp. Although the new Cosmic Crisp apples are
| quite great too and they last forever in the fridge.
| ithinkso wrote:
| Reinette were always my favorite apples, sort of popular in
| Poland but nor very 'presentable' [1]. Still, the best imho
|
| [1]
| https://pl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reneta#/media/Plik:Egremont_Ru...
| mcv wrote:
| Sounds (and looks) like the Goudreinet, the classic apple for
| Dutch apple pie.
| MisterBastahrd wrote:
| I had a real sweet tooth as a kid and learned early on that a
| bruised Red Delicious was a sweeter apple, so I would take some
| apples from my parents' kitchen and bruise them all over and let
| them rest for a day. The result was not only sweeter, but more
| flavorful too.
| legohead wrote:
| red delicious are great. for a while I was purposely buying
| different apples each week and checked my kid's reactions. turns
| out they like gala and red delicious the most.
| irrational wrote:
| Good article, but the author's conclusion is flawed. Pink Lady is
| the best eating apple ;-)
|
| (Before anyone brings up Honeycrisp - I do think it is the best
| saucing apple.)
| WalterBright wrote:
| I thought it was just me that hated the Red Delicious. The Fujis
| and Granny Smiths seem to be going downhill fast.
|
| The Galas are ok.
|
| I planted my own apple tree 20 years ago. Some years I get some
| fruit that the deer missed, and those are awesome.
| [deleted]
| throwawayboise wrote:
| I like Granny Smith sliced with peanut butter. They are also
| pretty good for cooking.
| jhgb wrote:
| Does this apply only to the US-grown apples, or is this a global
| problem?
|
| > When you picture an apple, you probably picture a Red Delicious
|
| Actually, I picture a Granny Smith. ;)
| rsynnott wrote:
| Applies in Ireland; we don't have the red delicious, but we do
| have the "golden delicious" (if consumer protection law had any
| teeth, these would be called "yellowish horrible" instead) and
| Gala and other Bad Apples.
|
| I think it may apply less in continental Europe.
| jhgb wrote:
| By virtue of preferring green apples, I've only had a local
| Red Delicious a few times in the past, but I don't recall
| having had any problem with the taste - except for, well,
| being too sweet for me.
|
| I guess I'll have to buy some the next time I see them to see
| what the fuss is about (and if there is any fuss to be had in
| the first place).
| dgan wrote:
| I absolutely love apples, and those Red Delicious are quite
| delicious
|
| No idea what the article is complaining about
| sumtechguy wrote:
| Wonder if it is a regional thing? Maybe there are several
| varieties of red delicious? But they all get the same name? In
| the area I live in now they are fairly bland and do not taste
| very good. But when I was a kid we would goto nebraska city and
| get a couple of bushels of them and those were very good
| otherwise we would not have bought that many.
| [deleted]
| dotcommand wrote:
| That explains why red apples taste horrible but what happened to
| grapes? I remember when grapes were the dark bluish/blackish
| concord types and now, the supermarkets mostly carry green and
| purple grapes which taste awful in comparison.
| swayvil wrote:
| I recommend the Pippin apple.
| koolba wrote:
| > "It turns out that a lot of the genes that coded for the
| flavor-producing compounds were on the same chromosomes as the
| genes for the yellow striped skin," Traverso explains, "so as you
| favored the more consistently colored apples, you were
| essentially disfavoring the same genes that coded for great
| flavor.
|
| This is also why so many cultivars of tomato and cucumber taste
| like moist cardboard. Once you taste what they're actually
| supposed to taste like, you'll never be able to go back to a
| shrink-wrapped English cucumber grown in a hot house.
| wwweston wrote:
| What's a good cucumber alternative and how do I get a hold of
| it?
| Spooky23 wrote:
| Look for regional producers or farmers markets. I'm lucky to
| live in upstate NY with ready access to farm stands about 30
| minutes away.
|
| Usually smaller producers make different choices in terms of
| variety.
| quantified wrote:
| The US Northeast has so many apples that don't travel well
| and have so much flavor: Spenser, Macoun, Empire... on the
| West Coast they're all lacrosse balls that taste OK to
| decent but mainly travel well.
| Spooky23 wrote:
| Everyone complains about the northeast re: weather, etc.
| But there's a ton of stuff like this that many of us who
| live here take for granted!
| quantified wrote:
| I miss that aspect of New England. Agriculture there is
| much more local. Apple picking in the fall was a delight.
| dheera wrote:
| Ideally get "Japanese cucumbers" from a Japanese grocery
| store, or get the "Persian cucumbers" from any grocery store
| that has decent typography in its logo (yes there is a HUGE
| correlation between logo typography and cucumber quality in
| my experience).
| SEJeff wrote:
| https://www.rareseeds.com/store/vegetables/cucumbers Bakers
| Creek only sells heirloom seeds (no cultivars). I get most of
| my garden seeds from them as they have the lineage of the
| seeds they sell available.
| koolba wrote:
| These seeds are amazing. The Beit Alpha cucumbers are
| fantastic and the Purple Bumble Bee cherry tomatoes are
| some of the greatest I've ever eaten.
| jtc331 wrote:
| Heirloom varieties (more properly "open pollinated") are
| themselves cultivars, which just means something that was
| selected/bred/domesticated.
|
| I think you're trying to get at "hybrids" (which just means
| the breeding isn't stable, i.e., the next generation isn't
| first red to match the parents, but even hybrids can be
| quite tasty.
|
| The issue isn't the breeding process per se; the issue is
| selectively breeding for the wrong things (or a single
| thing instead of a mix of things).
| sliken wrote:
| This is also why many AKC pure bred dogs have serious health
| problems. Turns of you select only on a simple metric like hair
| color, ear shape, of slope of the back, that you end up
| selecting for things that go against the very heart of what the
| breed was. So you lose characteristics that led to the breed in
| the first place.
| aix1 wrote:
| That, and inbreeding
|
| https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/although-
| purebred...
| https://www.instituteofcaninebiology.org/blog/inbreeding-
| of-...
| leotaku wrote:
| Somehow I don't seem to have the same experience as most people
| in this thread. Sure, homegrown tomatoes and cucumbers taste
| quite a bit better than what I usually buy at the supermarket,
| but it certainly isn't perfect vs. inedible.
|
| Possible explanations I can think of:
|
| 1. My taste perception is just broken because I am relatively
| young and have been raised on low-quality produce.
|
| 2. My local supermarkets just happen to stock excellent
| vegetables (I live in Central Europe).
|
| 3. There are some extremely high-quality breeds of
| tomatoes/cucumbers that I have never eaten before.
|
| 4. Other people are simply more enthusiastic about vegetable
| quality and therefore their claims seem exaggerated to me.
| crazygringo wrote:
| I think there are two things involved.
|
| First is that _some_ produce really _is_ terrible --
| "regular" cheap tomatoes can be utterly flavorless. But on
| the other hand, a lot of supermarkets stock tomatoes that
| range from fine to quite excellent, e.g. cherry tomatoes
| grown in greenhouses sold on the vine.
|
| And second is that people really do exaggerate how great
| homegrown tomatoes are. There are tomato snobs in the same
| way there are coffee snobs, whiskey snobs, chocolate snobs,
| whatever. They insist something is 100x better, when really
| it's just 1.5x better, because for some reason that's
| important to them, part of their identity.
|
| Yes, a farmer's-market heirloom tomato is utterly delicious.
| But store-bought cherry tomatoes on the vine are also super
| super tasty. Even the ones not on the vine can be really
| really good. (You can also find really bad ones though, it
| depends on the store.) I'd go so far as to say they're just
| _different_ , neither obviously better than the other.
| throwawayboise wrote:
| With tomatoes, I thought it was more that most are not ripened
| on the vine, they are picked green so they ship better, then
| ripened artificially with ethelene gas. They turn red, but
| don't develop the same flavor or texture as a real ripe tomato.
|
| Same with strawberries.
| [deleted]
| Eric_WVGG wrote:
| Nearly nobody under the age of 35 is aware that popcorn used to
| taste like corn. Not like modern ears of corn, which are bred
| mostly for sweetness; more like tortilla chips, whose corn is
| still (somehow) cultivated for corn flavor. Corny.
|
| [edit] ... also I'm baffled by how, every time I "hold the
| tomatoes" on my burger or salad, someone will invariably say
| "don't you like tomatoes?" and I have to go on this dumb rant
| about how the flavor has been bred out.
|
| Like, all these people have had marinara sauce and even
| ketchup, which are made from varieties of tomatoes that are
| still cultivated for flavor (and thus unsuitable for long-
| distance shipping). They know what tomatoes actually taste
| like!! yet still eat these slices of pink tomato that somehow
| have less flavor than American cucumbers and think "this is the
| same thing"
| jareklupinski wrote:
| i too stopped ordering tomatos for this reason
|
| some people mentioned looking for places that advertise using
| heirloom tomatos, but you still have to give them a good
| pinch of salt
|
| would love to join a startup that re-engineers flavor back
| into commercially-viable crops
| titzer wrote:
| Just move to Europe.
| dagw wrote:
| Most tomatoes here suck as well.
| jbverschoor wrote:
| Bulgaria, Greece
| yread wrote:
| Just always get beefsteak tomatoes for burgers
| dnzkw wrote:
| Sorry to tell you tomatoes are flavourless in Europe as
| well.
| titzer wrote:
| I lived almost 7 years in Germany, and the average tomato
| at a supermarket was lightyears beyond the US. Then
| farmers markets are even better.
| tajustice1 wrote:
| I lived almost 7 years in the USA, and the average tomato
| at a supermarket was lightyears beyond Germany. Then
| farmers markets are even better.
| watwut wrote:
| Yep. You have to grow own tomatoes to have good ones.
| Which is something only few people are willing and have
| option to do.
| cudgy wrote:
| San marzanos are pretty good ... oops I shouldn't have said
| that ... now the words out and the geneticists are working
| hard to screw them up too
| jfengel wrote:
| San Marzanos are origin-protected in Italy, so if you get
| Italian San Marzano's they're legally limited in ways that
| promote quality.
|
| Unfortunately, there is a large black market in mis-labeled
| San Marzanos, so it's not a full guarantee of quality. But
| it's something that they're at least working on, rather
| than just giving up.
| phkahler wrote:
| >> San Marzanos are origin-protected in Italy
|
| What does that mean? Protected under what laws?
| philwelch wrote:
| You know how "champagne" is technically only champagne if
| the grapes are from the Champagne region of France, and
| otherwise it's just sparkling wine? That's a legal
| designation in the EU.
| dagw wrote:
| _Protected under what laws?_
|
| Protected under EU law. Only tomatoes of a specific type
| AND from the specific region can use the name "San
| Marzanos".
|
| Outside the EU I don't think there is anything stopping
| yoou from labling any random tomato as "San Marzano".
| riffraff wrote:
| I may be wrong but I believe the canada-eu and eu-japan
| treaties also protect most denominations of origin (or
| rather, most by value rather than by specific items, but
| San Marzano should be included).
| KineticLensman wrote:
| It's a regulation [0] that says that products that are
| associated with a specific geographic location cannot be
| manufactured elsewhere and then passed off as the
| original.
|
| [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protected_designation_o
| f_origi...
| oakesm9 wrote:
| The EU is the main place that has these laws sorts of
| laws. I beleive that they will include it in trade deals
| so that it is enforceable in more of the world.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geographical_indications_an
| d_t...
| dathinab wrote:
| It's like trademark but instead of:
|
| "only this company can decide who can use the trademark"
|
| It's like:
|
| "only if it's production fulfills certain criteria can
| you use the name"
|
| It's made as a consumer protection so that people can not
| just claim their product is this kind of "traditional"
| product when it isn't. Except that it's less used like a
| consumer protection as it's mainly used like a trademark.
| Controlled by a small group of people and directly
| profiting some regional government/economy.
|
| Most commonly it requires the main ingredient to come
| from a specific region (also e.g. used for Wine or Sect).
|
| EDIT: I kinda did throw different regulations into one
| explanation here.
| happymellon wrote:
| It's a shame that Cheddar doesn't have good protection.
|
| Real cheddar is full of flavour, slightly sour. Great
| stuff.
|
| But you can go to places like the US and cheddar is not
| cheddar and they should not be allowed to call that
| cheddar.
| dekhn wrote:
| you can get good cheddar in the US. Here is a widely
| available brand which is much better than average US
| cheddar https://www.tillamook.com/products/cheese/sharp-
| white-chedda... aged cheddar is nom nom nom
| nicoburns wrote:
| "West Country Cheddar" is protected. I doubt you can get
| that in the US very easily though.
| adam-a wrote:
| "Farmhouse cheddar" I believe is the protected term for
| cheese from Cheddar or nearby.
| dunham wrote:
| There are some counterfeit San Marzano out there too. Out
| on the west coast, I've been pretty happy with Muir Glen
| tomatoes.
| jbverschoor wrote:
| Not just flavor. Also nutrition. You can't make something
| good from just water and cotton balls.
|
| Although we're very good at that here in NL
| kook_throwaway wrote:
| I thought I was the weirdo for thinking tomatoes on burgers
| didn't add any flavor. I love flavorful tomatoes everywhere
| else, generally, but the kind used on burgers are like mushy
| water.
| notJim wrote:
| A sandwich place near me does BLTs, but ONLY in the
| summertime when the tomatoes are worthy. I love it.
| cdelsolar wrote:
| I always thought tomatoes were pretty good and then I had
| tomatoes in Europe.
| vanderZwan wrote:
| I guess that means you had them in a Mediterranean country,
| because elsewhere in Europe they still are rather bland in
| my (northern European) opinion
| riffraff wrote:
| It's also seasonal, and depending on the provenance
| (local/imported).
|
| I live in Hungary and tomatoes are crap for 10 months a
| year, when they're generally imported from abroad and are
| obviously picked up unripe.
|
| Then during the summer you can buy tasteful tomatoes for
| a while, sourced locally.
|
| In Italy they're better on average, but you can also find
| tasteless dutch ones in supermarkets (again, picked up
| unripe).
| bonzini wrote:
| Yeah, in Italy you have to buy the local varieties. Non-
| PDO/PGI (protected designation of origin/protected
| geographical indication) cherry tomatoes are going to be
| tasteless (and cheaper).
| spywaregorilla wrote:
| Yes this is the key. Most of Europe is in the same boat.
| Eating produce in Greece however is astoundingly better.
| Italy was less consistent on this but still better.
|
| Which leads me to wonder if its really the genetic
| choices or is it just something about the farming,
| nutritional rich soils, or transportation/timing?
| idlemind wrote:
| Sunshine is the other big variable. Most fruit will only
| get sweet during ripening if it's receiving enough
| sunlight. This is why red grapes are seldom grown in
| northern latitudes - their dark skin blocks sunlight and
| prevents them from sweetening during ripening.
| nicoburns wrote:
| France is good for tomatoes too. I think it's definitely
| partly about local availability. But probably also a bit
| to do with cultural consumer choices too.
| France/Italy/Greece all have big food cultures in a way
| that isn't quite matched by northern European countries.
|
| That said, it seems to be getting easier to get high
| quality vegetables (including tomatoes) here in the UK.
| It's not from a supermarket and you pay more, but it is
| available (maybe still not quite as good as other
| countries, but certainly much improved on the flavourless
| stuff).
| dagw wrote:
| Where the 'European' ones better or worse?
|
| As a norther European, I've always found the tomatoes in
| the US far better than what I normally get.
| asdff wrote:
| Anyone can grow a pot of heirloom tomatoes outside in the
| summertime and end up with tomatoes that blow everything at
| the supermarket out of the water, if you can manage the
| pests. You can get pretty great produce at certain farmers
| markets, too.
| dylan604 wrote:
| After shelling out ~$50-$100 for intitial setup, you too
| can harvest $5 worth of tomatoes! And as you say, if you
| can keep the pests free, but that also requires for money
| to add to that inital purchase.
|
| The insect/worms/catepillars in my area are more vicious
| than rodent invasions. If you get catepillars, they can
| wipe out an entire plant in a day.
| quesera wrote:
| $50-100 is way overestimated. You can grow tomatoes in
| inexpensive pots. Seedlings are inexpensive.
|
| Maybe $15 total, plus water, time, and patience. The
| latter two of those can be expensive, but difficult to
| quantify.
| dylan604 wrote:
| Tomatoes get big. They need a decent sized pot. I would
| recommend a 12" pot, defintely no smaller than 10".[0]
| Dirt aint cheap. "Cheap as dirt" wasn't formed from
| shopping at garden centers with bagged dirt, and you
| don't need a truck load for container gardening.[1]
| Tomoatoes need up right supports like cages, etc.[2]
| Seedlings are cheap individually, but each one needs a
| container.[3]
|
| [0] $10 https://www.homedepot.com/p/Pennington-12-in-
| Terra-Cotta-Cla...
|
| [1] $5 https://www.homedepot.com/p/Miracle-Gro-Moisture-
| Control-8-q...
|
| [2] $5 https://www.homedepot.com/p/Glamos-Wire-
| Products-54-in-Plant...
|
| [3] $4 https://www.homedepot.com/p/Bonnie-Plants-19-3-oz-
| Early-Girl...
|
| That's one plant, and we're at $25.
| quesera wrote:
| Well you're right that it doesn't scale down to single
| pots.
|
| When I grew tomatoes in containers, I went for the 5-gal
| buckets from Lowes ($4), and bought soil in larger bags.
| Also your cage is more expensive than I recall paying.
|
| On the plus side, most of those are one-time startup
| costs.
|
| Our tomatoes are self-seeding at this point. We literally
| do nothing except pick them, and put away several dozen
| jars of sauce every year, from a couple neglected garden
| beds. It sounds like we have less trouble with pests here
| than you do though.
| dylan604 wrote:
| My original post said ~$50-$100 in initial setup, so
| you're not being fair to my original post. You need
| multiples of the things or similarly functioning things
| as posted. Yes, buying bigger bags of dirt is an option,
| or cheap plastic pots. If you're going to be doing this,
| you'll appreciate the clay pots as they don't bet brittle
| from UV exposure. I prefer clay as I just dislike
| plastic.
|
| It's a typical reaction when suggestions that gardening
| can be more expensive than people realize. Yes, if you
| use the same pots, start taking seeds generationally, etc
| the price amortizes to near $0. That first year though
| can put a dent in a wallet. If you've been doing it for
| awhile, it's easy to forget.
|
| We haven't even discussed getting into drip irrigation or
| similar. Each of the individual parts are cheap (tubing,
| sprayers/drippers, etc), but again it adds up with a
| timer etc.
|
| To be abundantly clear, I'm not trying to dissuade
| anyone, but just giving realistic expectations. It's just
| like getting into Arduino and what not. The controller
| itself is cheap. The shields are cheap. Electronic
| components are cheap. Then you add up all your receipts
| and realize, you've spent more money than originally
| anticipated. It's just the nature of DIY.
| quesera wrote:
| Well to be fair to my unfairness to your original post,
| you'll also get a lot more than $5 of produce out of a
| single pot.
|
| So, per pot, you'll spend $20 in the first year by my
| (updated) math, then $5-10 each successive year -- and
| you'll get about $15 of produce each season. Sometimes
| much more than $15. Cherry/grape tomatoes are expensive,
| and the plants are more fruitful than the larger
| varieties.
|
| Drip irrigation is out of scope. A minute or two, per
| container, per day, with a hose (or watering can) while
| you check for hornworms is the operational expectation.
|
| Anyway I don't disagree with your larger point. Little
| things definitely add up. I've been to IKEA!
|
| I also dislike plastic, but I liked the form factor of
| the bucket (straight vertical sides) to pack multiples
| into a small space. I still have the buckets 15 years
| later, and I use them for all sorts of misc jobs around
| the garden.
| robocat wrote:
| > you too can harvest $5 worth of tomatoes
|
| Your attitude is the problem - DONT equate $5 of
| supermarket tomatoes with an equivalent weight of home
| grown tomatoes.
|
| I go out of my way to buy "expensive" tomatoes, because I
| don't think of good tomatoes as being cheap produce, but
| more like an expensive vegetable (although price is still
| seasonal).
| dylan604 wrote:
| My attitude? I love gardening and growing my own
| vegetables. It is a simple truth, and the numbers don't
| lie. It gives me pleasure and enjoyment to do it. So the
| "entertainment" factor alone is worth it.
|
| At the end of the day for new people trying gardening, it
| can be a bit disappointning. To make it all 100% magical
| panacea without actual realization of monetary factors,
| you're not being honest with potential new growers.
| cultofmetatron wrote:
| you would probably love the dorito effect
| https://www.amazon.com/Dorito-Effect-Surprising-Truth-
| Flavor...
|
| Its a book about the incentives and technologies that came
| together to result in the deflavorization of food and the
| rise of the "flavoring" industry as a whole.
|
| Of the interesting things in there is one guy using a mass
| spectrometer to identify flavor compounds at scale to
| engineer a tomato that is hardy and ships well without
| sacrificing flavor.
| Eric_WVGG wrote:
| I have a feeling that "love" might not be the right word,
| but adding it to the queue ;)
| axguscbklp wrote:
| I agree that supermarket fruits and vegetables often seem to lack
| in flavor but to my taste, Red Delicious is not worse than any
| other supermarket apple. All supermarket apples, even the sour
| ones, pretty much just taste like slightly different variants of
| sugar water to me - the sourness of the sour apples just rides on
| top of the sugar water taste without really displacing it. I do
| not know why Red Delicious specifically has been singled out as
| the target of multiple critical articles given that one could
| just as accurately write such articles about all sorts of
| produce. Do most people really think that other supermarket
| apples taste any better than Red Delicious?
| smegger001 wrote:
| because it doesn't even have the sugar water taste going for
| it. it been so over optimzed for appearance shape and shelf
| life that the texture has become unpleasant, the flavor is non
| existent, and for years it was "The Apple" you have generations
| that had one of those awful thing sent in their school lunch
| every day (and usually threw it away without a single bite),
| that have grown up had enough of this garbage apple and it is
| now emblematic of bad flavorless fruit and vegetable in stores.
| axguscbklp wrote:
| I can taste the sugar water in Red Delicious and I actually
| enjoy the texture, but I understand the rest.
| sumtechguy wrote:
| I specifically use them only for cooking. The extra sugar
| in the other apples can caramelize too quickly for many
| dishes.
| wombatmobile wrote:
| Here in Australia the supermarket apples can be excellent.
| Tasty, crisp, juicy, sweet/tart, consistently reliable, and
| beautiful to look at.
|
| Do you have Jazz apples? They are the best.
| axguscbklp wrote:
| I do not think I have ever seen a Jazz apple here in the
| states, but I would love to try one.
| geerlingguy wrote:
| They usually have them near Gala at both my local grocery
| store and Walmart in the Midwest. They are good, though
| often a little more bruised than other varieties.
| orky56 wrote:
| I'm addicted to them. I get them from Trader Joe's here in
| southern California.
| wombatmobile wrote:
| jazzapple.com
|
| https://jazzapple.com/us/
| axguscbklp wrote:
| Thanks!
| jbluepolarbear wrote:
| There are Apple orchards that were abandoned in Washington State
| that my dad use to to take us to. These orchards had only red
| delicious and they were the best apples I've had. There are a lot
| of abandoned orchards around Washington and old species keep
| getting found.
| krupan wrote:
| Where in WA?
| jay_kyburz wrote:
| I hated apples all thought my childhood, but once I had my own
| kids I started buying more interesting variety's (even just
| from the supermarket) and I'm really hooked. Love em.
|
| It might also help that I have tried to cut down on sugar and
| apples are now one of the sweetest things I eat.
|
| I also discovered that cutting apples into bite size chunks for
| kids makes them taste better!
| my_usernam3 wrote:
| If you haven't already, get one of those apple (and pear)
| slicers. I don't usually advocate for single purpose kitchen
| appliances, but these are life changing.
| jader201 wrote:
| I used to love apples. Until I realized that most of the ones I
| would buy ended up being mealy. It was like rolling dice as to
| whether one would be mealy.
|
| Maybe it's because we started buying organic? We got some apples
| one time that weren't organic, and they were great.
|
| If organic apples are too susceptible to being mealy, I guess I'd
| rather just eat other organic fruits vs. eating non-organic
| apples.
| tipoftheiceberg wrote:
| Please support your local orchards if possible!
|
| The apples you find in stores don't even compare to some of the
| unique cultivars you can find at many orchards
| wyldfire wrote:
| Visiting orchards in Autumn was a fun annual tradition when I
| lived in the Northern US. The whole fam would enjoy those days
| together picking apples. No orchards nearby this part of Texas,
| though.
| mark-r wrote:
| I live very close to where the Honeycrisp was developed, and
| sadly I don't frequent them or the other local orchards as much
| as I should.
| nkozyra wrote:
| A big part of this is that a lot of varieties don't travel
| well.
|
| But commercial apples like ambrosia and honeycrisp do and are
| pretty tasty. Ubiquity of red delicious is sort of baffling.
|
| There's also a huge chunk of the country where apples don't
| grow well due to lack of sufficient freeze.
| mark-r wrote:
| The Red Delicious stands out to me as the textbook example of the
| power of naming and marketing. The origin story is unbeatable.
| The power of a name on our perceptions is undeniable. Realizing
| all of this has been one of the most empowering discoveries of my
| adult life.
| thaumasiotes wrote:
| > The Red Delicious stands out to me as the textbook example of
| the power of naming and marketing. The origin story is
| unbeatable. The power of a name on our perceptions is
| undeniable.
|
| Eh.... the Red Delicious's twin in naming is the Golden
| Delicious. Golden is a more prestigious description than red by
| any standard, and they're both "delicious". If you want to
| credit naming and marketing with the success of the Red
| Delicious, you need to explain why the Golden Delicious didn't
| succeed even more.
| axaxs wrote:
| Good point. I think looks have to follow. Golden Delicious
| always look...dull. Red Delicious look absolutely stunning. I
| guess I'd lump that in with 'marketing.'
| rsynnott wrote:
| The golden delicious, an awful, irredeemable apple, is very
| common in the UK and Ireland, much more so that the red
| delicious.
| axaxs wrote:
| True, but it also sucks because so many people say 'i dont like
| apples', including me until my mid 20s. Red Delicious are awful
| in every metric. Once a friend opened my eyes to pink ladies
| and honeycrisps, I was blown away and felt..cheated somehow.
| smhost wrote:
| It's crazy. I always subconsciously assumed that Red
| Delicious apples were how apples have always been (because
| they taste/look so much less appetizing than the other ones,
| therefore they must be the most "natural"), and that those
| other apples were genetically modified. And, being an
| immigrant, I thought it might even be a cultural difference,
| and that Americans just prefer the taste of Red Delicious.
| This is blowing my mind.
| axaxs wrote:
| IIRC, most apples aren't genetically modified as we use the
| term today, just 'hybridized'/crossbred or whatever the
| word is. I think they're also all sterile.
| WalterBright wrote:
| I've been throwing the cores out into the wild parts of
| the lawn for 20 years. None have germinated.
| thaumasiotes wrote:
| > (because they taste/look so much less appetizing than the
| other ones, therefore they must be the most "natural")
|
| This is just a problem of lack of familiarity with the
| space. Crab apples are indeed much less palatable than Red
| Delicious apples.
| mark-r wrote:
| Funny story. Johnny Appleseed was famous for planting
| apple seeds across much of the U.S. But because his
| apples were grown from seed, they weren't hybrids and
| were probably all crabapples. And the only use for
| crabapples was making cider, so he was basically ensuring
| all these communities would have hard cider available
| when he came back to visit.
| mark-r wrote:
| Now think of all the other areas of your life where the
| same thing has occurred, but you're not aware of it yet.
| petespeed wrote:
| https://images.heb.com/is/image/HEBGrocery/article/apple-
| gui...
| wyldfire wrote:
| This flavor axis omits Red Delicious' biggest weakness: the
| texture.
| axaxs wrote:
| I'm not sure I agree with this chart, but I guess everyone
| is different. To me, a red delicious is not tart at all.
| It's...tasteless. I also find 'good' cripps/pink ladies far
| more tart than any apple listed.
|
| I buy honeycrisp only for its texture, so I can't comment
| on the sweetness ratings as it's not my thing.
| Swizec wrote:
| Have you tried a Cosmic Crisp? A truly superior apple.
|
| Although its ability never to oxidize and turn brown feels
| downright unnatural. You can leave a cut cosmic crisp on the
| counter for days and it just stays yellowy white. Weird.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cosmic_Crisp
| axaxs wrote:
| I have. I don't know why, I just don't like them as much as
| I thought I would.
|
| However, I find cripp's pink to be wildly variable. Some
| are beautifully crisp and very tart, these are my favorite.
| One store by me sells them and they just taste like red
| delicious, despite having the color and whatnot.
| delecti wrote:
| I think Cosmic Crisp vs Honeycrisp mainly comes down to
| taste. I vastly prefer Honeycrisp, but I also don't like
| sour much.
|
| The sourness of Cosmic Crisp is probably why it doesn't
| oxidize readily.
| fouc wrote:
| Damn breeders.. ruining apples and dogs over time. Always going
| for some aesthetic ideal over performance.
| smegger001 wrote:
| oh they bred for performance just with different metric than
| the consumer would prefer. they can sit on a shelf without
| rotting far longer than say a gala jazz or opal apple, they
| hide bruising, all great traits if you are a supermarket chain
| storing hundreds of thousands in a warehouse for months at a
| time waiting to send them out to stores over the course of a
| year between harvests.
| mtnGoat wrote:
| I live in the "Apple Capital of the World", had to learn about
| apples my whole life. I'm not sure its a fair to make blanket
| statements about red delicious apples as many are not
| cloned/grafted, so the taste varies from producer to producer.
| The big name varieties of apples now are all copyright/trademark
| and grown via grafting, making output control much easier. Many
| of the older red del orchards are old and no longer profitable
| due to modern day orchard planting and management being much more
| advanced. As those orchards get replaced they get replanted or
| grafts from a currently more profitable variety are put into
| them. A reasonable amount of new varieties are growing on
| stumps/roots that once produced red delicious fruits.
|
| Rave and Ambrosia are the two variants Stemilt is pushing hard
| these days.
|
| the average now is around 12 years before they switch the
| varieties and put new grafts on a stump. seven years to get back
| to full production size, 5 years of product and then switch. the
| apple varieties being marketed today have been in the works for
| near a decade or more.
| mcv wrote:
| As a kid, I was a fan of Golden Delicious, while others
| criticised it for being too mealy. That wasn't my experience, at
| least at first. Eventually I encountered increasingly mealy
| Golden "Delicious", and started favouring other apples. Even the
| cheapest apples here, like Elstar and Jonagold, are pretty good
| in comparison.
|
| I wonder if it's the fate of any breed to eventually be bred for
| looks instead of taste. If you see two apples (or any other fruit
| or vegetable) of the same name, aren't you more likely to pick
| the tastier _looking_ one? You can 't taste them in the shop, but
| you can compare by looks. So eventually, that's what they end up
| being bred for.
|
| I'd expect the only way to protect an apple from that fate, would
| be to trademark the name, and the rightsholder only licenses the
| name to apples from cultivars that breed for taste and don't
| sacrifice taste for looks.
|
| This might be a case where IP rights might be used for good.
| asdff wrote:
| This is interesting, because I think apple picking orchards and
| farmers markets have an advantage here over supermarkets and
| delivery services. For public orchards, the apples are bred for
| taste first and foremost. Everyone goes in expecting to see
| dusty apples, with many worms too, but its fine since that's
| how it is out in the countryside. Everyone is also eating
| apples constantly while out picking, even if encouraged not to
| its an open secret, since after you've tasted the honey you are
| going to end up with two huge bags of your favorite varieties
| at the end of the day. Farmers markets also do a lot of free
| samples, even in this pandemic. You can typically ask at a
| farmers market for a vendor to slice you a sample as well if
| you are curious, most of the time they just do it for you
| unprompted as you are browsing. People become regulars at
| farmers markets if the vendor has very high quality items. They
| are looking for freaky mutant looking heirloom stuff in a
| farmers market, not a perfect plastic looking apple for a good
| price.
| technothrasher wrote:
| Regarding pick your own orchards, I don't know where you are
| but here in central MA most of the pick you own business is
| from tourists. Us locals just buy apples already picked at
| the farm store for less money. The farmers make the tourists
| buy the empty bags, not the apples, so they've already paid
| before they even pick a single apple. Neither taste nor looks
| really have anything to do with it. It's more about which
| farm puts on the best 'show'. Some of the farms are also very
| nasty about eating apples while out picking and will kick the
| tourists out if they catch them.
| autokad wrote:
| > "aren't you more likely to pick the tastier looking one?"
|
| I have always looked for the more multi colored ones, skipping
| the all red because they had a history of tasting less
| delicious.
| mithr wrote:
| I've had similar experience with Golden Delicious -- I stopped
| buying it years ago. But last year, I went to a pick-your-own
| place where I discovered extremely crisp, juicy, and flavorful
| Golden Delicious apples! Picked a couple of bagfuls.
|
| So I'm happy to report that they still exist. The trick is
| getting hold of them...
| klyrs wrote:
| > You can't taste them in the shop, but you can compare by
| looks.
|
| Actually, you can ask to sample apples. I make pies, and
| sometimes stores carry unfamiliar varieties, so I do
| occasionally ask. The kids often don't know that this is okay,
| so it helps to ask for the Produce manager. They'll grab a
| knife and cut a slice. Otoh grocery stores rarely carry ugly
| apples; they go to farm markets, where it's way more normal to
| ask for a sample
| exDM69 wrote:
| > I wonder if it's the fate of any breed to eventually be bred
| for looks instead of taste.
|
| No, fruit trees are predominantly propagated by cloning, by
| grafting branches into a root stock. This method has been used
| already in prehistoric times.
|
| New varieties are created by producing seeds, but then they are
| no longer called the same "breed". There is a big element of
| luck involved due to cross pollination and only specialized
| growers practice it.
|
| The issue you mention is common in plants propagated through
| seeds, such as tomatoes and carrots. Modern tomato varieties
| are red, big, robust in transport... and tasteless.
| wincy wrote:
| There's an interesting planet money podcast about the
| thousands of trees grown to find the honey crisp apple.
|
| https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2015/05/27/410085320/epis.
| ..
| mcv wrote:
| Yet the article talks about breeding Red Delicious for looks
| and transportability. If it was only cloning, Red Delicious
| would still taste the same way it did way back then.
| the__alchemist wrote:
| I may be misinterpreting, but I think the comment you replied
| to implies natural(artificial?)-selection at the supermarket-
| selection level; not actual breeding of the trees.
| amanaplanacanal wrote:
| Individual branches have mutations, and those are cloned for
| new trees. Which is what the article is about. It doesn't
| take seeds to have this behavior.
| gowan wrote:
| the problem with golden delicious is that you need to eat them
| within 3 days of when they are picked. a good golden should
| have a thin skin, be sweet, and crisp.
|
| i think part of the problem is that farmers pick them to early
| so your usually getting an green golden that has rotted a bit
| to turn yellow.
| frozenport wrote:
| Or just let people taste them in the shop. For example, as free
| samples.
| kqr wrote:
| Sometimes you can go by smell! Produce that smells good also
| often tastes good.
|
| I also have some luck going by looks, but by specifically
| looking for exemplars that have flawed looks (in ways that I
| know don't negatively affect flavour). For types of produce
| where you can sort of tell which ones are good, other people
| tend to go for the ones that look good but also don't have
| blemishes. That selection process results in the good ones
| being statistically overrepresented among the ones with flawed
| looks.
| Panoramix wrote:
| Looks might fool you once, but it's not a mistake you'll keep
| repeating over and over.
| mcv wrote:
| I think the food industry over the past century proves that
| wrong. Lots of food has been bred for looks over taste.
| dmitryminkovsky wrote:
| This is a great account if you're interested in fruit cultivars:
| https://mobile.twitter.com/pomological
| ljm wrote:
| I haven't seen red delicious on sale in UK supermarkets for ages.
| I used to back in my childhood, when you had a variety of loose
| apples on sale. We bought red delicious and golden delicious
| because they were cheaper, and we got granny smith apples as a
| treat. I liked red more than golden for reasons I don't remember
| but I think red had a stronger crunch and a thicker skin.
|
| I really don't like over-sweet fruit and it feels like a lot of
| fruits have been engineered for extra sweetness. So these days I
| try and stick to boring/milder stuff like Braeburn or Gala. Even
| for other fruits, like strawberries, it's hard to find a punnet
| that isn't the 'supersweet' variety.
| jefftk wrote:
| Since apples are propagated by grafting (cloning), has anyone
| kept original ("heirloom"?) Red Delicious stock from before it
| was optimized for looks? I'd be very curious to try one!
| acdha wrote:
| If you go around local orchards, you'll see them from time to
| time -- I've seen them in CT, MD, NY, PA, and VA. If they don't
| look like supermarket apples, they're worth eating.
| dotcommand wrote:
| I recently watched a youtube video about why avocados cannot be
| grown by seed and learned about grafting. Interesting stuff.
| Didn't know apples also were grown through grafting.
| 3minus1 wrote:
| There's an interesting discussion in Gun, Germs, and Steel
| where Jared Diamond claims that wild apples were inedible
| (IIRC due to cyanide in the seeds) and could only be
| domesticated after the invention of grafting technology.
| derbOac wrote:
| I lived in Iowa for a time not _too_ far from where they were
| originally from, and the red delicious apples there in local
| orchards on old trees are probably pretty close to what they
| were originally like. They 're smaller than the prototypical
| ones you find in the grocery, with a thinner skin, more mottled
| or striped and round in appearance, and have flavor sort of
| like mcintosh.
|
| If you know what they are, you'll probably be able to identify
| the red delicious flavor, mostly in the skin I think. However,
| my guess is if you gave one to a bunch of people they probably
| wouldn't recognize them as red delicious apples. They might
| identify them as mcintosh or something like that.
| LorenPechtel wrote:
| This is why a lot of people grow produce at home. Seeds/plants
| meant for home growing favor tasty over transportability and thus
| most garden produce is far superior to what the store sells.
| nostrademons wrote:
| Red Delicious was my favorite apple as a kid. Some of this might
| be questionable taste - my sister's favorite was a Mcintosh - but
| I wonder if they were better 40 years ago. Had one recently and
| it was underwhelming. My wife turned me on to Pink Ladies and
| Fujis and I'll never go back to Delicious.
| whatever_dude wrote:
| The article is explicitly stating and explaining why they were
| indeed better 40 years ago.
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2021-08-02 23:01 UTC)