I remember the first time I went to a supermarket in the United States I was so overwhelmed by all kinds of apple varieties. Having no idea which one to choose, I decided to go for the one that looks good AKA Red Delicious. And soon I realized, it was everything but delicious, it was an apple abomination! So why are we still producing it and blatantly lying saying it’s delicious? And really, What the heck is Red Delicious apples? Well, let’s find out with PAA.
Video:Why do Red Delicious apples taste so bad? Histroy of Red Delicious
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Hi, I am Shao Chieh Lo, welcome to what people also ask, where I search something seemingly obvious and share with you some of its PAA, aka People Also Ask, which is a feature telling you what other people are searching on Google that relates to your query. Today’s keyword is Red Delicious apple. We will talk about what it is, some history about it, and why Corporate America got the nerve to call it delicious. So let’s start with our first PAA:
What are Red Delicious Apples?
The answer to this question is extracted from Wikipedia’s Red Delicious apple entry. According to this entry, Red Delicious is a type of apple with a red exterior and sweet taste that was first recognized in Madison County, Iowa, in 1872. Today, the name Red Delicious comprises more than 50 cultivars.
From 1968 to 2018, it was the most produced variety in the United States. Gala became the most produced after that. So it’s actually not one cultivar but a variety. For those who don’t know, a cultivar is a plant that is produced and maintained by horticulturists but does not produce true-to-seed; whereas, a variety is a group of plants within a species that has one or more distinguishing characteristics.
True-to-seed means plants whose seed will yield the same type of plant as the original plant. So as it turns out, the term Red Delicious sometimes is referring to an apple variety comprised of more than 50 cultivars, not a single cultivar. No wonder its taste seems to be very inconsistent. And what the heck, how can it get away with being the most-produced apple up until 2018?
Why do Red Delicious apples taste bad? And Why do we still produce so many Red Delicious Apples?
So Why do Red Delicious apples taste bad? And regardless of the fact that it tastes terrible, Why do we still produce so many Red Delicious Apples? To answer these two questions, we will have to learn some history of Red Delicious. And four articles could give us a very good overview.
The first article titled “The Red Delicious is an apple atrocity. Why are we growing billions of pounds of them each year?” was published by The Counter. The Counter is, according to their about page, an independent, nonpartisan newsroom investigating the forces shaping how and what Americans eat.
The second article titled “This Is Why Red Delicious Apples Suck So Hard” was published by huffpost.com, and the third article titled “The Awful Reign of the Red Delicious” was published by The Atlantic. And finally, an article titled “Red Delicious Apples Weren’t Always Horrible” published by New England Today, which according to their about page is a “ multi-portal website designed to be the ultimate online resource for the New England region offering original expert content on New England travel, lifestyle, food, the best events and so much more. “
According to these articles, In the late 1880s, Iowa farmer Jesse Hiatt visited his orchard and found a mysterious apple seedling. He dug it up, but it kept coming up, and he decided that perhaps it deserved to live because of its tenacity. Hiatt eventually gave up and dubbed the apple “Hawkeye”. Hiatt then submit Hawkeye Apple in a competition held in 1893 by Stark Brothers’ Nursery of Louisiana, Missouri, which is a competition aimed to find a successor for the Ben Davis, which was then the most frequently planted apple in America which was sturdy and beautiful but bland.(hum…Sounds like Red Delicious itself, but anyway)
After one bite of Hawkeye Apple, the president of Stark Brothers Clarence said, “My! This apple is delicious!” He paused, then declared, “That will be its name!” Stark Brothers soon purchased the rights from Hiatt and named the apple the “Stark Delicious.” In 1914, to differentiate it from their new apple variety Golden Delicious, it was renamed: Red Delicious.
Ok, so what’s wrong with Clarence? How could he call that abomination delicious? Did he just blatantly lie or there was some problem with his tastebuds? Not necessarily!
As it turns out, the Red Delicious apples you can find in the supermarkets might be a totally different thing than the Red Delicious Apple Clarence bit into in 1893.
According to an apple grower Mike Beck at Uncle John’s Cider Mill: “The original Red Delicious was pretty awesome in the sense that it was a highly edible apple that appealed to many,” Beck says. “But it wasn’t red. It was red and yellow-striped. The original Hawkeye had maybe a little bit of pineapple or melon flavors. It was fruity and sweet, but it didn’t look awesome.” However, in 1923, a New Jersey grower discovered that one branch of his Red Delicious apple tree had not only ripened before the others but had also turned a deep crimson red. Soon, the whole industry of Red Delicious growers was on the lookout for their own mutation that would produce prettier and redder apples.
By the 1980s, Red Delicious accounted for 75% of the crop grown in Washington. Until the 1990s, when new varieties developed by American growers originally for export markets, like the Gala and the Fuji, started to make their way back into the domestic market, Americans finally realized, there are apples that actually taste good. The industry was caught off guard by a sudden change in consumer preferences as well as growing competition from Chinese orchards. American apple growers found themselves having surplus crops worth close to $800 million between 1997 and 2000.
In 2000, A total of $138 million bailout, or roughly $30,000 per grower in Washington, was approved by the government as the largest bailout of the apple industry ever. However, this only partially reduced growers’ financial problems; as a result, the industry has since focused on exports. So the idea is like, okay. since Americans now have realized how disgusting Red Delicious is, let’s sell it to those foreigners who are still unaware of how terrible it is before they figure it out. classic Corporate America.
Ok, that’s the big picture of the whole Red Delicious shenanigan. Let’s also talk about some interesting details about it.
Where are Red Delicious apples grown?
This question is answered by an article titled “All About Red Delicious Apples” published on Minneopa Orchards’s website. According to this article, Cooler climates are ideal for growing Red Delicious apples. Washington State provides a large portion of the Red Delicious apples consumed in the United States. Red Delicious trees thrive in the sunny fall and chilly winter. That’s because the apple only develops its distinctive red color under environments of sufficient sunlight, and it also requires 700–800 cooler hours to produce fruit.
Why are Red Delicious apples cheap?
The question is answered by an article titled “The Red Delicious is an apple atrocity. Why are we growing billions of pounds of them each year?” which was published by The Counter. According to this article, Red Delicious is particularly popular in markets with low average incomes due to its low cost. For a wide range of reasons, the variety typically costs less. The price has plummeted due to weak domestic demand and the fact that they are typically grown on older trees, where the startup costs have already been paid off. Additionally, because the Red Delicious variety was created almost a century ago, their production does not include “the “club fees” charged to orchards growing more recent proprietary strains like the Honeycrisp.
How many calories does Red Delicious apple have? What is its nutritional value?
According to American Health Care Software Company CalorieKing’s website information, a Red Delicious Apple contains about 89 calories, 0.3 grams of fat, 2 mg of sodium, 21.2 grams of carbohydrates, 3.5 grams of fiber, 0.4 grams of protein, 0.5 mg Calcium, 157 mg potassium, 83 mcg vitamin A.