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Is there any variety of crabapple that is good for raw eating?
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Posted by
allenwrench 6 (
My Page) on
Tue, Jul 29, 08 at 16:04
| Is there any variety of crabapple that is good for raw eating? |
Follow-Up Postings:
RE: Is there any variety of crabapple that is good for raw eatin
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- Posted by bboy z8 WA USA (My Page) on
Tue, Jul 29, 08 at 18:23
RE: Is there any variety of crabapple that is good for raw eatin
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Yes, there are many.
Named variety crabs and apple/crab hybrids are often very tasty, and I'm a proponent of calling them 'lunchbox apples' rather than 'edible crabs' - I'm not the one who came up with that terminology, but it would be appropriate if folks still carried lunchboxes to work/school. While some may be quite tart, others have very high sugar content.
My list of named-variety crabs/lunchbox apples that are great for eating out-of-hand would have to include the following:
Centennial, Wickson, Chestnut, Kerr, Dolgo, Hewes, Trailman, Whitney, Transcendent, Callaway(an ornamental type), Geneva Crab & Almata - the last two are large, red-fleshed varieties. I'm sure that there probably are others, like Young American crab, which I have in my collection, but has not yet fruited for me.
As a kid,I grew up eating, by the pocketsful, the 1" red-fleshed fruits of the big old ornamental crabs(Royalty or Robinson, maybe?) on the lawn of the Holiday Inn my dad managed. Most ornamental crabs with fruit larger than a pea that I've sampled have beeh pretty tasty, though every once in a while, you encounter a real 'spitter'. |
RE: Is there any variety of crabapple that is good for raw eatin
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Hi Lucky_p-
Good info. In that case, if both are edible (and if crabs are often tasty), what makes a crab apple a crab apple. Is it just that regular apples often taste better? Or is there a special crab flavor? I've always wondered this, and I believe I asked it in another thread, but never got an answer. Next time I see a crab apple tree, I'm going to try one. Thanks,
-Glenn |
RE: Is there any variety of crabapple that is good for raw eatin
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| The root meaning of crabapple is wild apple and I think that is pretty accurate -- it has genes of some other kind of apple (malus) which is not the standard domesticated apple from Kazakhstan. Many of the US crabs have Siberian Crab genes for example. Some definitions of the term say a crabapple is any small apple but that is an inaccurate definition in my mind. The term "lunchbox apple" is the better term for the small apples. Scott |
RE: Is there any variety of crabapple that is good for raw eatin
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| Thanks Scott! (Sorry if I briefly hijacked the post... back to 'Any good crabs for eating raw'). -Glenn |
RE: Is there any variety of crabapple that is good for raw eatin
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| Pretty sage advice above. I enjoy eating the fruits of my 'Chestnut' crab right off the tree when fairly ripe. I also have a 'Pink Pearl' apple which, while technically not a crab, I guess, pretty much functionally is a crabapple -- small, about the size of a golf ball, tart-sweet, and makes a nice jelly or baked apple or spiced/pickled apple. |
RE: Is there any variety of crabapple that is good for raw eatin
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| I can second Whitney crabs as an excellent eating apple. Very juicy and extremely tasty. They will get up to about 2" in diameter, but usually are a bit smaller. Prolific bloomer, too. They start out a little tart, then continue to sweeten and are nicely crisp. After a couple weeks, they will gradually get mealy but retain a great taste. |
RE: Is there any variety of crabapple that is good for raw eatin
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Glenn,
By convention(whose, I don't know) any apple producing a fruit typically less than 2" in diameter is considered a 'crab'.
The break between 'ornamental' and 'edible' types is tenuous and artificial, at best; probably based on fruit size as much as anything else; even the 'edible' types are quite ornamental when in bloom, and some of the 'ornamentals', like my favorite, Callaway, can look kind of ratty by the end of the season when they're weighted down by heavy fruit loads..
Scott is right that many of the 'edible' types have Siberian crab in their heritage - Dolgo is a straight M.baccata, and the parent of both Centennial and Kerr(other parents are 'apples' - Wealthy and Haralson, if I recall correctly, respectively). Others, like Chestnut and Almata also resulted from deliberate crosses of apple cultivars with crabs.
I've seen any number of taste-test trials that consistently ranked Chestnut and Wickson crabs at the top of the list for consumer acceptance. |
RE: Is there any variety of crabapple that is good for raw eatin
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RE: Is there any variety of crabapple that is good for raw eatin
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| Thanks for all the help. I'm in the Ohio Valley. How are the crabs you have listed in the thread for disease resiance? Anything I should not go with if it is disease prone? |
RE: Is there any variety of crabapple that is good for raw eatin
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| My transcendant crab fruited for the first time this year and I was impressed with the apples. They are crisp and juicy and have almost too much flavor ... very tart and astringent but also sweet. I was picking them for weeks, and would go out at night with a flashlight and pick a few more. |
RE: Is there any variety of crabapple that is good for raw eatin
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| The best eaters are John Downie and Golden Hornet. |
Here is a link that might be useful: Fruit Trees
RE: Is there any variety of crabapple that is good for raw eatin
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Allenwrench,
I'm a no-spray orchardist - not because I don't believe in them, or worry about harming the environment - I just don't have the time to bother with it.
Are my crabs perfect, without any insect damage, sooty blotch or flyspeck? No. But the vast majority of the fruits are in good enough condition to eat without being worried too muc about a codling moth larva here and there, and in those that do have some insect damage, I just cut out or eat around the bad spots. It's almost September, and the leaves on my crabs - and apple - trees are getting pretty ratty-looking, with a few trees almost defoliated from scab, etc. - but it's the end of the season, and they're not landscape specimen trees(though they are quite pretty in their spring bloom). The leaves have mostly done their job - manufacturing food for fruit production and next year's initial growth surge. |
RE: Is there any variety of crabapple that is good for raw eatin
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| Will any crap apples grow in zone 11 with no chill at all? Thanks Everyone? |
RE: Is there any variety of crabapple that is good for raw eatin
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| Lucky's definition is what I've read again and again. Any apple small enough is a crab. "Wild" as a definition doesn't make any sense to me although that doesn't mean it isn't also a usage definition. I am warry anytime someone claims such and such are the best in flavor, whether it's crabs or any fruit. There are many different crabs that are widely celebrated for their flavor in the fruit loving community. Which taste best depends on the brain directing the mouth in which they are being chewed. I feel certain that it would be a mistake to single out only 2. Some crabs are disease resistant, some not so much and I wouldn't be surprised if the same holds true for insect resistance although I'm really no expert on edible crabs. I did order a few trees of, I think, Centennial for my nursery to try them out and I manage a dozen or so old trees that are grown for their fruit. I do think many varieties can enhance cider-both fresh and the real stuff. Trees of Antiquity carries several interesting crabs. |
RE: Is there any variety of crabapple that is good for raw eatin
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Location can make a significant difference.
In zone 5 and colder, the red-fleshed crabs, like Geneva, Giant Russian, Winter Red Flesh, etc. may be tasty eating - but here in my hot zone 6, they're nothing to write home about - and I was forewarned that they were 'trashy'(I thought that was pretty harsh, at the time) in a warm climate - though Almata, which fruited for the first time for me in 2008, was tasty enough; but still a far cry from Centennial or some of the others mentioned earlier in this thread. |
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