Apple brawl! Honeycrisp vs Jonagold

Exciting, last-minute change in the 2009 Apple Showdown schedule! By popular demand, we bring you two, late-breaking entrants: the Honeycrisp and Jonagold.

I’ll be honest with you, I was thinking this was gonna be a blowout. Numerous people have pulled me aside in recent days, urging me to wedge the Honeycrisp into the competition, damning any consequences, recriminations and backlash from the original varietals and their powerful Old Orchard lobbyists. “The Honeycrisp will lap the field!” they crowed. “To the pillories with the ancien regime!” they howled. Choosing the reputedly bland and unloved Jonagold as bait, I sat down last night expecting to bear witness to an appley Armageddon.

News flash! The Jonagold is pretty good. The texture is firm enough, with a pleasant bite and a satisfying amount of juice. The flavor is about average, but overall I was pleasantly surprised.

News flash! The Honeycrisp was disappointing. It does have a pleasant crispness, and a more enjoyable texture than the Jonagold, but I can’t say I preferred the taste of either over the Pink Lady or Fuji.

Anti-climactic, eh? Hey, if you want drama, you should write an apple screenplay, then you can satisfy your craving for appley subterfuge, joie d’pomme, and the Triumph of the UnderApple.

Apple Thunderdome! Gala versus Fuji

Both the Gala and the Fuji are medium-sized apples, unlike the David vs Goliath match from yesterday. Two apples enter the dusty arena, seemingly on an equal footing… but the crowd roars with lusty vengeance as the match is over in the first two bites!

Fuji: A dream apple! Juicy, crisp, firm, sweet and delicious.
Gala: It is certainly an apple.

I alternated back and forth between the two, slogging through the Gala slices so that I could get to the sweet reward of more Fuji slices. Paradise found!

Coming soon: the championship round (Fuji vs Pink Lady) followed by the consolation round for 3rd place (Braeburn vs Gala).

Apple smackdown! Pink Lady vs Braeburn

I’ve always been confused when shopping for apples. Which ones are you supposed to cook with? What’s the difference in taste between them? Which go best with a frosty mug of seawater? Etc. So I’ve been buying several varieties at a time and trying to notice the difference. I’m skipping golden delicious, red delicious and granny smith, ‘cuz I’m pretty sure the first two are boring as hell, and the last is only good for cooking.

Today it’s a Pink Lady versus a Braeburn.  (I get Braeburns and Fujis mixed up all the time.)

Pink Lady: smaller, sweeter, denser, and seems to have a brighter taste than the Braeburn. Juicier, too.
Braeburn: Less intense taste, but still juicy and sweet. This one had just a trace of annoying sponginess or mushiness.

Based on these two specimens, I’d definitely vote for the Pink Lady.

I’m trying to remember to compare the flower ends with each other, and the stem ends. I used to think it was crazy that the flower end would have more sugar than the stem end, but I believe it now.

(And yes, I realize I’m comparing apples to apples! hahahayouarefunny!)