Why Don't Supermarket Apples Taste
Any Good?
It used to be that you
could buy US grown apples in our fall and winter, and then in summer you
would get apples from reverse-season climates like Chile and New
Zealand. But that has changed.
If you go into the
supermarket in July and pick up an apple with a “Washington Apple”
sticker on it, it is a safe bet that it is a “CA” (controlled
atmosphere) apple. Washington State finishes up their apple harvest by
November, which means that apple has been sitting in a refrigerated,
oxygen-starved CA warehouse for months. Washington produces so
many apples that they put them in storage and sell them all year.
In order to keep them crisp and juicy, the apples are picked
a little green, sorted carefully, treated with such preservatives as
diphenylamine, thiabendazole, and 1-methylcyclopropene(1-mcp), and waxed
with shellac or carnuba wax. They are then sealed a minimum of three
months in a warehouse where they are refrigerated to 32 degrees, and the
oxygen level is reduced. This slows the ripening process, and the
apples are held in suspended animation for up to a year. Not
surprisingly, this doesn’t do the taste any good at all even though the
apple may be crisp and juicy. They are green (under ripe) to start
with, and the CA process sucks any remaining taste out of them. We call
these apples Zombies, as the taste is already dead, and
the carcass is kept alive artificially. Once the apple is removed
from this embalming environment, they deteriorate quickly.
Now we don’t want
to appear overly critical of the farmers or grocers. Farming is a
business, a risky one at that, and they’re just trying to eek out a
profit from an extremely competitive and fickle market. More than any
place else on earth, Americans get what they want. So if consumers are
willing to settle for eating zombies all year round rather than fresh
apples for only a few months out of the year, why blame the farmer?
Those who care about taste should grow their own apples.
There are some
varieties of apples that do taste much better after being in storage a
few months, such as Esopus Spitzenburg. Unfortunately,
this does not apply to any of the varieties commonly sold in
supermarkets. On the other hand, being in season doesn’t mean the
apples are fresh. Those supermarket apples you are eating in October
may be fresh (first picked), or they may be leftover zombies. The taste
will tell you in a heartbeat. So when you’re choosing the variety of
apples you want to plant, don’t go by the taste of supermarket
apples. The Golden Delicious apple is a fine apple, but you
would never know it by the unripe, mushy glob you get at the supermarket
that may be months old. Just about any apple on our Warm Climate Apple
List eaten off the tree will whoop the taste of the best supermarket
apple. Click
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