Home » All hail the Tango apple

Comments

All hail the Tango apple — 16 Comments

  1. Sheepsnose. It’s an heirloom apple that I had once, a long time ago. Maybe I’m misremembering, but it was more complicated-tasting than The Big Three, as you put it.

  2. When I was growing up in Washington state’s apple country, I noticed that the farmers grew Red Delicious and Golden Delicious — because those varieties sold — but often ate Winesaps. (And of course often made cider from them.)

    Now, I am quite fond of Cripp’s Pinks (usually sold under the Pink Lady trade name).

    It would be fun some time to get a group together and do some blind tast tests. I assume very few of us could tell the difference between our favorite apples and similar varieties.

    By the way, consumers made Red Delicious less tasty, because they chose the apples that looked best — which were the deep red ones.

  3. Jim Miller:

    I think you’d enjoy the New Yorker article I linked to. All of that is discussed in some depth.

  4. We like jonathans, but i love crab apples
    we just had a mango apple.. (hybrid) very yum
    but then again… we go picking and some of the japanese types are really good if you like sweet, large and yellow

    next try rambutan… (not an apple, looks awful, nice taste like melon leechy, etc)

    a few days ago, three exactly
    the man of apples was born
    John Chapman

    Jonny Appleseed
    an evil man who sowed invasive species (modern take)
    a wonderful person who seeded the place with food bearing trees instead of pincones

    John Chapman (September 26, 1774 — March 18, 1845), called Johnny Appleseed, was an American pioneer nurseryman who introduced apple trees to large parts of Pennsylvania, Ontario, Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois, as well as the northern counties of present-day West Virginia. He became an American legend while still alive, due to his kind, generous ways, his leadership in conservation, and the symbolic importance he attributed to apples. He was also a missionary for The New Church (Swedenborgian) and the inspiration for many museums and historical sites such as the Johnny Appleseed Museum in Urbana, Ohio, and the Johnny Appleseed Heritage Center in between Lucas, Ohio, and Mifflin, Ohio. The TinCaps, a minor league baseball team in Fort Wayne, Indiana, which is where Chapman spent his final years, is named in his hono

    Most people dont know he was real

    most people dont know bram bones and ichabod crane were also real and were in sleepy hollow ny…

    yes, some of the tall tales of america are real
    babe the big blue ox is not
    nor is john henry..
    [but it would have been great to see such a man]

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johnny_Appleseed

  5. Neo:

    There is a new variety of apple cultivar “Cosmic Crisp” soon to be released from Washington State University:

    http://dialogue.tfrec.wsu.edu/breed/wa38-apple-cultivar/

    The selection and breeding of apple varieties for crispness has been advanced by technology specifically a digital “crispness” tester (MOHR Digitest 2 – MDT2) which can replace the guy or gal doing the “bite” test. Anyway, the MDT-2 is being used by growers (to determine when to pick and when to move the apples from controlled atmosphere/cold storage to market) and by researchers. Data from the tester is digital and quantifiable, makes crispness a “hard” number.

    http://www.mohr-engineering.com/

    MDT Agricultural Penetrometer and Texture Analyzer
    MDT Series Automated Materials Testers

    Fruit penetrometers and texture analyzers give accurate, repeatable results.
    Saves 50% or more of the time you spend testing and generates automated reports.
    Also use for general materials testing.

  6. The Wealthy apple, and the Snow Sweet apple are both varieties produced in Minnesota; hence able to withstand very cold winters.

    Both apples produce well, are crisp and make excellent pies. Superb for just eating…….sweet tartness.

  7. neo – Thanks for the reminder. I assumed the “New Yorker” article was similar to the NYT article I read, linked to, and wrote about some years ago.

    And here’s a tip in return, which may be new to some of your readers: When apples were sold from bushel boxes, they were advertised with “apple box art”. I’m not saying it is great art, but many will find the images great fun. (Use a Google image search on the phrase, if you want to see examples.)

    There’s a Texaco station a couple of miles from where I live that has a nice collection. I like to say, half jokingly, that it is the best art gallery in Kirkland.

  8. My understanding is that apple seeds mutate like crazy, which is why seeds from a great tree, fruitwise, do not yield daughter trees with the same quality fruit. Thus, cloning (taking grafts) is the only way to reproduce a specific strain,
    Apple trees live for about 80 yrs max. So well-established orchards constantly cut the older ones down, yielding timber that makes wonderful smoke. Think applewood-smoked bacon!

  9. Courtland makes a great pie, bakes up good for folks who want to pass up all those crust calories, yummy out of hand too. Just cannot abide ” Delicious. red or yellow”. It would be too akin to riding that absurd train with Gov Moonbeam as the only other passenger.

  10. I bought a bag of Sweetango apples at Trader Joe’s a couple weeks ago. Perfect blend of sweet-tart, crisp and delicious. My new favorite.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

HTML tags allowed in your comment: <a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <s> <strike> <strong>