When Exactly: Wednesday Nov. 19 - 8:15 pm
Cultivar: Blushing Golden
Purchased From: Locust Grove Fruit Farms - Union Square Greenmarket (NY, NY)
Size: Medium
Color: I don’t know, I’m colorblind.
Eaten How: Unadorned.
Review:
Candy apples are for two kinds of people: kids and idiots.
I’ve touched on this matter quite a bit but it’s worth repeating. Sickly sweet and/or artificial-tasting flavors have no place in an apple. If I wanted candy, I wouldn’t be eating an apple. Candy needs to imitate the taste of something, so I can understand apple-flavored candy but not candy-flavored apples. No candy on the outside of an apple, and definitely no candy on the inside.
There was a light aroma of orange zest and a little lemony zip in the first few bites of this nice-looking heirloom (I bought several varieties at Union Square this week that are tough to differentiate due to my color blindness, hence the pen markings). However, this auspicious opening was crushed by an amalgam of candy tastes. I was accosted by a “Wild Cherry Blast” flavor that ganged up with a second sweetness that disguised itself initially as honey but revealed itself as plain white sugar. In fact, I’d venture so far as to say it tasted like HFCS, considering how it lingered on the top of my mouth for several minutes afterwards.
On to texture. In picking up two apples this week with the word “gold” in their names (the other is a Gold Rush, coming later this week), I took a dangerous step toward the Golden Delicious, also known as the Worst Apple Ever. (I’ll expound further on Golden Delciouses some other day.) Thankfully, this Blushing Golden shared only a few visual characteristics with the “Delicious” but no direct textural similarities. It was midway between a crunchy apple and a fluffy; I would liken the texture to a canned water chestnut. It’s funny; people associate water chestnuts with a pleasing, crunchy snap, but when incorporated into a dish, they usually retain only a little bit of crunch and become sandy in the middle. Thus, I feared some mealiness at the center of the Blushing Golden but I did not encounter it, thankfully. For doing me that courtesy, I’ll allow this apple to pass with a Strong Warning.
Grade: C-
