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- From: haighal@aol.com
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- Subject: Re: [NAFEX] nafex Digest, Vol 57, Issue 53
- Date: Thu, 18 Oct 2007 08:13:02 -0400
Since WW II at least, the U.S. has been the best fed but worst food leader- I mean we brought the world Wonder Bread and T.V. Dinners. Of course our most popular apple would be Red Delicious, what better apple to clear out the remaining bits of the McDonalds burger from the palate. Like most of our foods R. D. is a relatively cheap to produce and ship comodity that leaves the consumer with more money to buy other things. Our food may taste bad but we spend less of our income on it than the citizens of any other industrialized country. It serves our economy well.
Old timers can wax poetic about the stripier strains of R. D. but I manage lots of very old Red Delicous trees of poor coloring strains. I bit into a couple of apples from one of these yesterday, and spit them out after finding them to be their usual bland insipid selves. The only improvment I can discern over newer strains is the skin is finer so you don't get that woody affect.
After testing that uninspiring variety I made my way to a century old Tompkins King on the same site and actually almost finished an excellent apple from that giant matri-patriarch (about the 20th variety sampled that day). This tree had already been dropping apples for a month and was still loaded with ripening apples- it'd be a nightmare for a commercial grower. It would require at least 5 pickings to harvest good apples. The size of the apples ranged wildly as well-this wouldn't do at all for a commercial apple today, labor is much to expensive.
Now many Americans are rich enough to afford all the gadgets and gizmos deemed necessary to make modern life tolerable and still have enough left over to afford to pay a bit extra for food that actually tastes good. Many of the newer apples are more expensive to produce than good old Red Delicious and people are paying more for them, so maybe there is hope for us fruit snobs.
Alan Haigh, The Home Orchard Company, Carmel, NY
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Subject: nafex Digest, Vol 57, Issue 53
After testing that uninspiring variety I made my way to a century old Tompkins King on the same site and actually almost finished an excellent apple from that giant matri-patriarch (about the 20th variety sampled that day). This tree had already been dropping apples for a month and was still loaded with ripening apples- it'd be a nightmare for a commercial grower. It would require at least 5 pickings to harvest good apples. The size of the apples ranged wildly as well-this wouldn't do at all for a commercial apple today, labor is much to expensive.
Now many Americans are rich enough to afford all the gadgets and gizmos deemed necessary to make modern life tolerable and still have enough left over to afford to pay a bit extra for food that actually tastes good. Many of the newer apples are more expensive to produce than good old Red Delicious and people are paying more for them, so maybe there is hope for us fruit snobs.
Alan Haigh, The Home Orchard Company, Carmel, NY
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To: nafex@lists.ibiblio.org
Sent: Thu, 18 Oct 2007 6:56 am
Subject: nafex Digest, Vol 57, Issue 53
Send nafex mailing list submissions to nafex@lists.ibiblio.org To subscribe or unsubscribe via the World Wide Web, visit http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/nafex or, via email, send a message with subject or body 'help' to nafex-request@lists.ibiblio.org You can reach the person managing the list at nafex-owner@lists.ibiblio.org When replying, please edit your Subject line so it is more specific than "Re: Contents of nafex digest..." Today's Topics: 1. Red Delicious (TIM INMAN) 2. Re: Red Delicious (Mark & Helen Angermayer) 3. Re: Red Delicious (Michael Nave) 4. Re: Red Delicious (Douglas Woodard) 5. Re: Red Delicious (Spidra Webster) 6. Re: Red Delicious (Lee Reich) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Message: 1 Date: Wed, 17 Oct 2007 17:52:17 -0500 From: "TIM INMAN" <TIM@HISTORICINTERIORS.COM> Subject: [NAFEX] Red Delicious To: <nafex@lists.ibiblio.org> Message-ID: <002501c81110$5ec50be0$7801a8c0@TIMSONY> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Lon is right: The original red delicious, the Iowa Hawkeye Delicious, is a superior apple in all regards. Unfortunately, it is a great example of what mass production and quantity over quality can do to a good thing. Hawkeye is very prone to sporting, thus over the years we've come so far away from the original it is almost unrecognizable. The Red Delicious in stores today are just junk. There is a long and very interesting story behind the Hawkeye. Stark, who bought the rights to the original Hawkeye and renamed it Red Delicious, now sells what they call Heritage Red Delicious. I believe they are derived from Dwayne Manning in Woodbine, Iowa. He has a Hawkeye surrounded by barbed wire and security fences and he should be given credit for preserving the original Hawkeye Red Delicious. Commercial orchards must make a profit, but the old saying comes to my mind, "Penny wise, pound foolish." I think they've ruined Red Delicious for most people. Just My Opinion! Tim Inman -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: https://lists.ibiblio.org/sympa/arc/nafex/attachments/20071017/25d4cea8/attachment-0001.htm ------------------------------ Message: 2 Date: Wed, 17 Oct 2007 22:22:58 -0500 From: "Mark & Helen Angermayer" <hangermayer@isp.com> Subject: Re: [NAFEX] Red Delicious To: "North American Fruit Explorers" <nafex@lists.ibiblio.org> Message-ID: <008e01c81136$2f834f60$619cf404@computer5> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Amanda wrote: "Not in Washington State. Both Van Well and C&O's various Red Delicious sports are sold out for 2008 delivery already." Hi Amanda, I'm not sure "sold out" really denotes sold out. What I mean is I've contacted nurseries very early, before ordering season even starts, and been told they were sold out of various cultivars. Just this year, I contacted C & O nursery in August (early August I think) and they were sold out of several trees (for spring 2008). These were trees that can be budded and grown into whips in one season. Maybe someone in the nursery business can correct me, but this has happened often enough I'm thinking some nurseries don't offer all their trees every year, and rather than saying the variety is not available for the given year, they simply say "sold out." After all, it makes their trees sound like they're in big demand. Mark KS ------------------------------ Message: 3 Date: Wed, 17 Oct 2007 22:13:24 -0700 (PDT) From: Michael Nave <jmichaelnave@yahoo.com> Subject: Re: [NAFEX] Red Delicious To: North American Fruit Explorers <nafex@lists.ibiblio.org> Message-ID: <459365.23105.qm@web50912.mail.re2.yahoo.com">459365.23105.qm@web50912.mail.re2.yahoo.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 I hope future generations never know the taste of Red "Delicious" (and what a fraudulent name that was). It is almost single handedly responsible for the decline in apple consumption in the latter half of the 20th century. No one ever ate a red delicious apple and said "yum, I need to eat more apples." It's the worst tasting apple I have ever experienced. It's not a plain old sugary apple. It's a plain old tasteless apple. --- Mark & Helen Angermayer <hangermayer@isp.com> wrote: > The other day Red Delicious apples were selling for > 49 cents/lb at the > grocers. Nobody is making money at that price. I > wonder if it won't be > long before they disappear from the stores > altogether. It seems apparent > Red Delicious is headed for back-yard orchard > production only, but I'm > wondering will eventually disappear completely? > Seems a strange sad thought > that future generations may never know the taste of > a Red Delicious, even > though it's not that great (However, the current out > of favor preference may > in part be due to oversaturation. I wonder after > we've had our fill of > Fujis, Galas, Honeycrisps, if we will yearn for a > plain old sugary apple). > Just a thought. > > Mark > KS > > > _______________________________________________ > nafex mailing list > nafex@lists.ibiblio.org > > Reproduction of list messages or archives is not > allowed. > This includes distribution on other email lists or > reproduction on web sites. > Permission to reproduce is NEVER granted, so don't > claim you have permission! > > **YOU MUST BE SUBSCRIBED TO POST!** > Posts from email addresses that are not subscribed > are discarded. > No exceptions. > ---- > To subscribe or unsubscribe, go to the bottom of > this page (also can be used to change other email > options): > http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/nafex > > File attachments are NOT stripped by this list. > TAKE STEPS TO PROTECT YOURSELF FROM COMPUTER > VIRUSES! > Please do not send binary files. > Use plain text ONLY in emails! > > NAFEX web site: http://www.nafex.org/ > __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com ------------------------------ Message: 4 Date: Thu, 18 Oct 2007 01:49:35 -0400 From: Douglas Woodard <dwoodard@becon.org> Subject: Re: [NAFEX] Red Delicious To: North American Fruit Explorers <nafex@lists.ibiblio.org> Message-ID: <4716F3EF.8090602@becon.org">4716F3EF.8090602@becon.org> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed Years ago I bought some Red Delicious in St. Catharines' farmers' market from a small grower, probably shortly after picking, which were striped and not very brightly coloured. I'd guess they were the original or close to it. The flesh was was hard, crisp and very sweet although somewhat bland. They may have been picked at a non-optimal time or given too much nitrogen, or maybe the weather wasn't sunny or hot enough to bring out their best. It did originate in the midwest after all. I've eaten Red Prince Delicious grown in Prince Edward County which were pleasantly flavoured and better than other red sports although nothing special. Doug Woodard St. Catharines, Ontario Niagara Peninsula Michael Nave wrote: > I hope future generations never know the taste of Red > "Delicious" (and what a fraudulent name that was). It > is almost single handedly responsible for the decline > in apple consumption in the latter half of the 20th > century. No one ever ate a red delicious apple and > said "yum, I need to eat more apples." It's the worst > tasting apple I have ever experienced. It's not a > plain old sugary apple. It's a plain old tasteless > apple. > ------------------------------ Message: 5 Date: Thu, 18 Oct 2007 01:38:14 -0700 From: Spidra Webster <spidra@speakeasy.net> Subject: Re: [NAFEX] Red Delicious To: North American Fruit Explorers <nafex@lists.ibiblio.org> Message-ID: <CCAD534E-3BEE-4C6A-9B6C-036FB961103A@speakeasy.net">CCAD534E-3BEE-4C6A-9B6C-036FB961103A@speakeasy.net> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII; delsp=yes; format=flowed On Oct 17, 2007, at 10:13 PM, Michael Nave wrote: > I hope future generations never know the taste of Red > "Delicious" (and what a fraudulent name that was). It > is almost single handedly responsible for the decline > in apple consumption in the latter half of the 20th > century. No one ever ate a red delicious apple and > said "yum, I need to eat more apples." It's the worst > tasting apple I have ever experienced. It's not a > plain old sugary apple. It's a plain old tasteless > apple. Yup. I didn't know it at the time, but it was Red Delicious that was responsible for me deciding "I don't like red apples". I liked green apples (which, it turned out, were Pippins and then later Granny Smiths). But I never tasted a red apple I liked. Since they were just called apples in the supermarket and not really associated with cultivar names, I didn't know that there were different cultivars that could taste very different. It's only in the last couple years that I've rediscovered apples. First, by tracking down the Newtown Pippins of my youth and secondly by being introduced to red or reddish apples that taste good. What a surprise! There's an orchard near here in El Sobrante that was reclaimed from brambles. The new owners rehabilitated it and tracked down the cultivar types. It turns out the man who planted it in the '60s or so bought his trees from Starck Bros. He planted Gravensteins and Pippins, which I find to be delicious, but I was surprised that the non-commercial orchard also had such wastes of space as Red Delicious. I figured I had better try one to see if being grown organically and tree-ripening made a difference. Although it made a difference, the difference was slight. You still have an apple that was bred for looks and the ability to ship well. Taste was clearly secondary. Thankfully, diving into the world of home orchards, local food and heirloom varieties has taught me that it wasn't the color of the apple that made it taste bad. Not all red apples are bad. But Red Delicious is a contradiction in terms. Megan Lynch Berkeley, CA ------------------------------ Message: 6 Date: Thu, 18 Oct 2007 06:56:31 -0400 From: Lee Reich <garden@leereich.com> Subject: Re: [NAFEX] Red Delicious To: North American Fruit Explorers <nafex@lists.ibiblio.org> Message-ID: <B39829E7-B95C-485E-AD6A-AE44EC5B3D7F@leereich.com">B39829E7-B95C-485E-AD6A-AE44EC5B3D7F@leereich.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" I grow the original Red Delicious. It is relatively pale red with a lot of yellow background and has a rich, honey-like sweetness. Also quite juicy. I rate it as a very good apple but not one that compares with my favorites, such as Jonagold and Macoun, at their best. Lee Reich, PhD http://leereich.com/ Books by Lee Reich: The Pruning Book Weedless Gardening Uncommon Fruits for Every Garden A Northeast Gardener's Year On Oct 18, 2007, at 1:49 AM, Douglas Woodard wrote: > Years ago I bought some Red Delicious in St. Catharines' farmers' > market > from a small grower, probably shortly after picking, which were > striped > and not very brightly coloured. I'd guess they were the original or > close to it. The flesh was was hard, crisp and very sweet although > somewhat bland. They may have been picked at a non-optimal time or > given > too much nitrogen, or maybe the weather wasn't sunny or hot enough to > bring out their best. It did originate in the midwest after all. > > I've eaten Red Prince Delicious grown in Prince Edward County which > were > pleasantly flavoured and better than other red sports although nothing > special. > > Doug Woodard > St. Catharines, Ontario > Niagara Peninsula > > > Michael Nave wrote: >> I hope future generations never know the taste of Red >> "Delicious" (and what a fraudulent name that was). It >> is almost single handedly responsible for the decline >> in apple consumption in the latter half of the 20th >> century. No one ever ate a red delicious apple and >> said "yum, I need to eat more apples." It's the worst >> tasting apple I have ever experienced. It's not a >> plain old sugary apple. It's a plain old tasteless >> apple. >> > _______________________________________________ > nafex mailing list > nafex@lists.ibiblio.org > > Reproduction of list messages or archives is not allowed. > This includes distribution on other email lists or reproduction on > web sites. > Permission to reproduce is NEVER granted, so don't claim you have > permission! > > **YOU MUST BE SUBSCRIBED TO POST!** > Posts from email addresses that are not subscribed are discarded. > No exceptions. > ---- > To subscribe or unsubscribe, go to the bottom of this page (also > can be used to change other email options): > http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/nafex > > File attachments are NOT stripped by this list. > TAKE STEPS TO PROTECT YOURSELF FROM COMPUTER VIRUSES! > Please do not send binary files. > Use plain text ONLY in emails! > > NAFEX web site: http://www.nafex.org/ -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... 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- Re: [NAFEX] nafex Digest, Vol 57, Issue 53, haighal, 10/18/2007
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