North American Fruit Explorers mailing list at ibiblio

[nottke1 <nottke1@earthlink.net>]

Mark,
Your note about "snap" causes me to mention my experience with "squirting" 
apples a few weeks ago. A neighbor planted four identical apple trees of 
unknown variety about 25 years ago so that he would have apples to feed his 
several horses.  The trees are un-pruned and un-sprayed and have gotten very 
large.  Apples are medium size, similar to Magnum Bonum


-----Original Message-----
>From: Mark Angermayer <hangermayer@isp.com>
>Sent: Nov 1, 2008 4:24 PM
>To: North American Fruit Explorers <nafex@lists.ibiblio.org>
>Subject: [NAFEX] Apple tastes
>
>Alan's good post on the Cameo apple promted me to write something I've
>discovered about my own apple tastes. This post may generate a lot of
>disagreement.  That's OK, I've got a lot to learn about apples.  But as a
>novice, I've still been ordering apple samplers from Applesource.  One thing
>I've discovered is that the most important apple characteristic for me is
>snap.  Why is this a revelation?  Because snap doesn't seem to be given
>much weight in apple descriptions.  Apples are typically characterized as
>sweet, balanced, or tart.  For my part, I think apples should be
>characterized mainly as crisp or yielding.  I've always known texture is a
>pretty big thing to me, but all the apple descriptions had me a little
>confused about what I really like in an apple.  Finally after tasting a
>couple dozen different apples from applesource, I realized generally the
>crisper the apple the more I liked it.  Whether it be sweet, balanced or
>slightly tart.  Thinking back, my three favorite (storebought) apples have
>been Honeycrisp, Fuji, and Pink Lady.  Since two are sweet and one is tart,
>the common thread is crispness.  Juiciness is probably a close second for an
>important characteristic.
>
>I wonder that I'm not all alone in this regard.  Pink Lady, Fuji, and
>Honeycrisp have continued to gain market share.  I understand Fuji is the
>number one apple in Japan and China.  Japan's number three apple is Mutsu (I
>don't know what the second place apple is).  Mutsu is also know for
>crispness, being an offspring of Fuji.
>
>I know all apples are probably crisp when picked perfectly and eaten right
>away, but I'm refering to maximum crispness with less than perfect
>conditions.  I think sweet, balanced, and tart are still very valuable
>descriptions, I'm just saying they perhaps, take a backseat to snap.
>
>Mark
>KS
>
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Jim Nottke
Pfafftown, NC