Agreed axel.

You do bring up a good point about heirlooms possibly being different in that they need aging first. Until I started browsing these forums, I wouldn't have known that. Imagine my disappointment if I'd planted a Goldrush this January, then tried a few apples off the tree next October and decided they were terrible. Or, if I'd planted an Anna then tried to store them in the fridge for a few months only to find they were mush. It would definitely help if growers included harvest AND storage info on the tags.

No answers here, but a recognition of how very interesting (and provocative) this post is.

A recent discussion on pear ripening brought home how varied people's experiences can be, and it's clear that "Where" matters a lot. Appears the same is true of apples, another pome . I speculated during the pear discussion that some varieties came to prominence in certain areas just because they got the right chilling sequence on the tree. That is, you picked 'em, ate em, and loved 'em. No uncertainty.

You could certainly infer that as needs and tools changed from the Revolutionary period, when fruit was stored through as much of the winter as possible, to the Industrial age, when it became possible to ship via rail -on ice, no less!- that the commercial need for fruit that tasted "just so" right off the tree developed.

So apples that were well loved 150-250 years ago would be worthless as a commercial venture for quite a period, perhaps the better part of a century so far. We ended up with quasi-apples that look good in an ad, or which handle and keep well and look great, but aren't all that good.

Make a market for those apples that store well, taste great, and even look purty (are there any?) and you could save all that gene pool, ay? You'd have to overcome some stereotypes, no doubt. But we have a public which has learned that there is more to wine than red and white, which turns its back on "french bread", insisting on "pain au levain", and wants its cheeses properly aged and sausages that are more than salt and fat and smoke. I really think it may start to insist on superior fruit as well.

I do hope.

Best,

M

Axel, with your careful storage of such a wide variety of apples and your high interest in the subtle flavor differences thereof, you are speaking from a rarified world with very few inhabitants.

Your relationship with fruit appears as involved and obsessive as mine but the difference in your experience is interesting to me. You probably have a much better and more subtle memory bank for distinguishing and cataloging varietal flavor differences than I do.

10 or 15 different types of apples is more than enough to keep me apple happy for an entire winter. More varieties would in no way enhance my experience and would just over complicate my storage efforts. Still, reading about your experiences with different unusual varieties is like reading an interesting novel to me. I really enjoy your posts.

I think I probably posted a similar remark to you sometime past but for me the idea is like vaguely remembering a type of apple that I enjoyed a while ago and I feel like another bite even though I can't quite remember what it tasted like.

Several American apples are spoken about in terms of improving in storage, as you probably know. Newtown Pippin, Arkansas Black, and Winesap come to mind but if you read Beach's "Apples of NY" I believe you'll find it standard for him to rate when many of the varieties are best out of storage.

Maybe you should consider starting a business where you provide people with unusual apples at the perfect point out of storage for eating. You could advertise in Wine Spectator or even sell to fine restaurants. It would be easy for you to get free publicity to advertise your business.

Obviously no one mentions it in the US because "storing" apples would never sell to Americans, it's hard enough to get them to eat any fruit at all. It would be impossible to sell fruit you have to "buy now but can't eat until later" to any consumer who is not TFTO (totally fruit tree obsessed) like us. Sad but true!

Carla in Sac

Big "But" to Carla's point: American distributors of fruit go to great efforts to store fruit just as it came off of the tree, and that costs them, at least in terms of varieties available for sale but surely in decreased appeal.

Doesn't it make sense for them to buy fruit that reaches its prime months down the road, as opposed to picking it near its prime and trying to prevent its deterioration for the same months?

Obviously "the devil is in the details", but I'm guessing there may be an opportunity here. I'm not trying to sell the American public "storing" apples, just an apple which has been stored. They already do that, and they don't care about the mechanisms involved. My thought is that this apple cooperates with the produce wholesaler in a way that the current popular varieties do not.

Just thoughts, and best wishes,

M

Carla: I you are refering to selling trees, I think you may be right; on the other hand, if refering to the fruit, I'm inclined to disagree. For one thing, the public is willing to try new things though seldom en masse making getting a new fruit or vegetable established difficult. Also, storing produce for many months prior to shipping to retailers is a very common practice for crops grown here in the U.S. as well as elsewhere for international markets.

Your average family doesn't have any way to store fruit for long periods.

My family is going to be setting up some home fruit storage capacity, hoping to have fresh fruit all year. I've ordered some trees that are reputed to bear apples that improve with storage, and I've got trees already that were chosen because the fruit can be stored well into winter.

I might be interested in selling properly aged apples, but I am not quite sure how. Farmer's markets are over when the nice weather ends. I can't imagine any typical American consumer actually driving out of their way to pick up a couple of pounds of apples, and I am a good way out of town.