Author: terribleminds (page 7 of 475)

Reviewing apples is a fundamentally silly thing because of course all things like this are subjective. Further, apples are rarely the same from apple to apple, especially when you factor in things like where you got it, when you got it, when you ate it, what tree it came from, is it demon-possessed, is the apple a murmuring egg, did the apple inspire you to join an orchard cult where you wassail the trees and wish for them to grow up and through your foes?

It’s why I’m noting where and when I got these apples — and when possible I’ll also re-review the apples from different orchards at different times of year. Because I know for sure a Cortland from Wegman’s in January is a whole different animal than the Cortland I ate the other day.

The scoring itself is another silly thing, as if all of life can be neatly encapsulated in a score of one through ten. Or worse, through the current internet-scoring-du-jour of S-TIER through F-TIER. (Though real-talk I’m a sucker for those charts where you organize things in those rankings, shut up.)

Still, we love to review and rank and rate things so here I am, doing exactly that. (There’s a website out there already that does this — I think it’s called Apple Rankings? I hate it so much. It’s very funny and I don’t hate it because of that, I hate it because it’s so wrong about so many apples. I want to bite it.)

My ratings are pretty much vibes-based, as are most ratings — I do not have particular criteria I’m using to chart that score. As Rhett and Link might say, this is gut check time. I’m of a mind that five is the middle, and marks the point where I at least roughly like or appreciate an apple — below that, I don’t like it, above it, I do like it. And everything beyond that is pure chaos.

With that said, we go today to review the Cortland apple — a classic New York apple, perhaps the classic New York apple. A Macintosh and Ben Davis cross, it’s one I haven’t had luck with yet, really, so let’s give it another gooooooo.

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My review of a Cortland apple, yoinked from Manoff Orchard (here in Bucks County PA) in late Sept:

I’ve heard the Cortland praised many a time, and each time I’ve consumed a Cortland, I’ve disliked it mightily. Which has felt jarring to me — suggesting I am either so out of step with everyone else’s tastes that I might as well be E.T. (though even he liked Reese’s Pieces, the little bastard). I mean, I’m sure some of this is pure New York pride, right? You can’t fuck with the Cortland. It’s unimpeachable in its home state. It’s as untouchable as a bodega BEC, as a bagel, as a pizza rat.

But every Cortland I’ve had has been mealy or dull, a loveless and lifeless lump — pretty, perhaps, but ultimately a real Sluggo of an apple. Where, pray tell, is a Cortland that is more Nancy? That has more personality? More attitude, more swagger?

Well, I think I found one.

Now, when I say I found one, I don’t mean I found the best apple of my life — given some praise I hear for the apple, I’d argue what I ate was still a little underwhelming, missing that mark by a good bit.

But still, quite tasty.

The skin, a bit forbidding. But the bite was a deep rattling bone-crunch, and pleasing for that sound — there is truly an atavistic satisfaction in the sensation of that kind of crunch. I tried to hint at this in Black River Orchard, how that the sensation of chomping into a truly crunchy apple heralds the distant vibe of biting through something or someone that has opposed you — like snapping through the fingerbones of an enemy, like hearing the caveman crunch of a skull under a rock, culminating in the the subsequent feeling of conquest and satiety. (Just me? Ha ha ha I’m kidding don’t worry about it please don’t call the authorities, I’m definitely not running around the neighborhood crushing heads with rocks just to feel something, anything at all.)

There’s a good balance to the sweetness and the tartness — probably a 60/40 split with more tartness than sugar. The sweetness is light and airy, the tartness a temporary pop, and between the two is sandwiched some kind of unidentifiable funky spice. It was almost a lavender, herbs-de-provence thing — savory and strange. And then at the end of it, a hit of like, Port wine. That, probably vinousness from the Macintosh? Sure.

The apple flesh (apfelfleisch) was coarse, juicy, snowy white.

It’s a nice apple. Nothing you’d ululate about in cult-song, but nice.

I assume up to this point most of the Cortlands I had sucked because they just weren’t from the right place, and were left too long off the tree. Some apples don’t love time off the branch where others genuinely improve like wine. This one wasn’t from NY, but hey, close enough. It was a solid apple.

Call it a 7 out of 10, and onward we go.

The video here.

(Reviews so far this year: Honeycrisp, Sweetie, Crimson Crisp, Knobbed Russet)

Cortland: nothing you’d ululate about in cult-song, but nice

Holy fucking shit, look at this Shrek-Ass Apple.

Sorry, I’m getting ahead of myself.

Before we begin, a note on how (and why) I’m reviewing these.

The why, first. Once upon a time, there was a land called Twitter, and in this festive, deranged realm, I spent a lot of time shouting my insane apple reviews to any who would hear. I did literally hundreds of them. It was silly, but fun, and we all had some fun together. And then the land called Twitter suffered a tectonic event, a cataclysm that broke it into pieces, and from the shattered fundament arose the dread land of X, which was awful, so I got the hell out of there and nuked the site from orbit. Which is to say, I also nuked my apple reviews in their entirety.

So, I want to rebuild that — and not just on Instagram, where I tend to post my “live reaction” apple mukbang “apple snack gang” reviews, because I don’t own Instagram, and a shitty person does own it, and I don’t want some digital serf just cultivating land for my social media monarchs. I own this space and feel like, hey, fuck it, let’s bring the apple reviews back, let’s formalize them, let’s codify them, let’s get them on THE BLOG because

THE BLOG IS ETERNAL

THE BLOG IS ALL

ALL HAIL BLOG

Or something.

As to how I review these: I eat the first bites of the apple on camera, post that shit to Instagram, and then I actually eat the rest of the apple on my own, in the quiet introverted solitude of my weird writer’s shed. I will peel the apples first, usually — sometimes the skin is a wonderful part of the apple, but honestly, I’m there for the APPLE MEAT. I’ll eat it, take notes as I go, and try to think really hard about what I’m tasting, which sometimes is “I taste muscat grape and paperback book paper and the wanderlust of a lonely but still-horny widow,” and other times is, “wow this tastes like an apple, you guys.” I’m sometimes sophisticated, other times, I’m just a dull penny, and we’re all going to have to deal with that.

I am not an expert on anything.

(I did write a book about apples but it’s fictional, and the apples in it are Quite Evil, so if you want Quite Evil Apples, then Black River Orchard awaits you. It’s also a very good Fall Times Spooky Season book — combining both the horror and the autumnal thing, if you are into such combinations.)

I’ll then start to keep these as a persistent list here on the site, linking to all these individual reviews. Look for that starting up maybe later this week!

Okay, that’s done, let’s review Shrek’s Ballsack — uh, I mean, this totally normal and not-at-all-scrotal apple.

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My review, Knobbed Russet from Scott Farm (VT), late September:

The Knobbed Russet.

Also known as: Knobby Russet, who I’m pretty sure was a kid I used to play kickball with. Also called the Winter Russet, the Old Maid. I might add a few more names, myself: Bubonic Orb, or Frankenstein’s Kidney. Or maybe Satan’s Canker. Belial’s Bezoar? Whatever.

The last time I ate one of these was a great sadness. It tasted like depression. It had the texture of clumpy kitty litter. Sad dust. Moist sand. Nothing good. I don’t hate a soft apple, though it’s not my preference — but I really don’t like biting into an apple and getting a mealy-shit blah-smear on my tongue. And that’s what happened the last time I had one of these.

That did not happen this time.

This time! No mealy mush! No apple gruel piped into a lumpy skin bag!

We’ll be generous and begin with the taste, which is mostly pleasing. I’m used to russets being a little more interesting, overall, in which I mean there’s usually some complexity in the taste, and this is more a straight-line to its end flavor. When I barely had bitten it, and I mean my tooth had only just punctured ITS DREAD ARMOR I mean its skin, I was immediately greeted by a pinprick of powerful tartness. Like an electric thumbtack. Bzzt.

And the flavor bore that out — what I got from that was a strong lemon sorbet slash lemon candy vibe. Which is not unpleasant if you’re a person who likes sour candy! You eat this and your lips sing after, like you just ate a handful of Sour Patch Kids. It’s assertive, just not particularly nuanced.

The flesh itself — that densely-packed, finely-grained thing is beloved by some though I’m not necessarily one of them. It’s also not really a juicy apple — it’s not some dry sphincter, either, but it’s not bringing much to the party by way of juice. Still: the flesh is fine! The meat is good!

All that said, I think it behooves us to talk about its appearance. Trust me! I’d love to live in a world where we don’t have to be so shallow with our apples, but it’s actually a little relevant — ugly fruits and vegetables don’t get to live in the grocery store aisles, okay? People don’t buy them because we’re vain, horrible creatures who value looks first and everything else a distant second.

And admittedly, when I see this apple, my first thought is, “That barnacled sphere is definitely haunted. It has seen some shit. It may have Lyme disease. It might be an egg. Some foul beast will definitely emerge from that bungled scrotum and drag me back to its mother’s lair in the fens.” It’s vainy and weird — like if Shrek were possessed by Venom. But, to be fair, the longer you look at it, the more fascinating it becomes. This leper potato is its own creature, and it’s kind of beautiful, in a “swamp bolus” or “wasp gall” kind of way.

It isn’t fun to eat, though. Chewing that skin is like eating a wallet and all the money in that wallet. It’s a hard, unforgiving affair. Like being married to a coal miner. I don’t recommend it. Peel it to eat it. Which will be hard because it’s like peeling a rock, but you’ll get there if you put your back into it.

Anyway! This is a good apple. It’s a fugly one, but tasty in its way.

Let’s call it a 6.5, shall we?

(Watch me eat it here)

(Reviews so far this year: Honeycrisp, Sweetie, Crimson Crisp)

Knobbed Russet: Sure it looks like the nutsack of a dying dryad but eat it

Behold: the Crimson Crisp apple.

You may think, “Ah, this is another Honeycrisp deviant,” but nay, it is not a child of Honeycrisp, nor a mutated sport — same last name, but different parents. It in fact predates the Honeycrisp by (don’t quote me on this) about 20 years in release though maybe only three in actual development. Further, the Crimson Crisp was once known by the more romantic name–

*checks notes*

Coop 39.

*clears throat*

I do feel like this was an early step on the “let’s finally put Red Delicious in the grave” journey, whereupon America decided it needed new and better apples. And this gets us a good part of the way there. This feels like a solid first step on the “apples shouldn’t be indestructible Liar Fruit that we suggest is both Red and Delicious but is mostly Purple and Shitty* transformation, and sure, I’m here for it, mostly. (Less here for the fact most heirlooms have been kicked to the margins of food history in favor of apples that can travel to and exist in grocery stores coast-to-coast.)

Regardless, I’m to understand there might be a convoluted mix of apples that went into this — Jonathan? Rome Beauty? But also —

*checks notes*

Crandall.

Which is apparently an apple.

Crandall.

Crandall.

I definitely call dibs on using that as a character’s name someday. Some kind of corrupt CEO, maybe. Or a foot fetishy sorcerer. Hell, maybe just a hunchbacked gravedigger. CRANDALL, SECURE THE BRAIN. Anyway.

Let’s review.

My review of the Crimson Crisp apple, procured from Manoff Orchard (PA, Bucks County) in late September, blah blah blah:

Well, this apple is a fucking flavor journey, let me tell you.

I’ve had it before and I don’t recall the, ahhhm, complex roller coaster that whipped my tastebuds around my mouth when eating this apple. I honestly expected it just to be pretty much a line drive down the middle — you know, crisp, crunchy, sweet-tart, pleasing (if not memorable), totally serviceable, okay goodbye, what’s next.

Then I ate it.

On that first bite: hit of rose. Which, okay, not entirely unexpected. Apples are related to the rose, after all. I’m used to a floral hit with some apples.

Second immediate sensation in that first bite: horseradish.

Yeah, fuckin’ horseradish. In my opinion, one of God’s greatest mistakes, and one of the Devil’s cruelest roots — a spicy dirt log, a zesty shit potato, just a horrible thing, the horseradish. Some people love it and that’s fine, people can be wrong monsters if they want to be.

So, to clarify here, what I tasted in this apple was not the spicy part of the horseradish — at no point did it try to burn the hairs out of my nose. But rather, there’s a deeper taste to horseradish (what I might argue is the radishy part): an earthy funky miasma, and I got that with this apple. Earthy unzesty horseradish whiff wafting through my mouth.

I blame the Crandall, obviously. Whenever I taste something strange in an apple, something complex and mildly upsetting, I may simply refer to that as “the Crandall taste.” As in, “oh, you can really taste the Crandall in there.” And when people act like they don’t know what I’m talking about, I’ll just laugh in a dismissive, pompous fashion, as if to say, “You fool, you prole, you lumpish commoner, doesn’t know what a Crandall taste is.”

And then, then—

The third act of this flavor journey (and here I’ll remind you this is first bite):

Barley.

Like, malted barley.

Then, all that fades away and you’re hit with something altogether more appley. The sweetness, the tartness, huzzah and hooray. Got a deep crunch, fairly satisfying. Juicy, not crazy juicy. There’s a faint cantaloupe finish. And then, for the epilogue of this flavor journey —

The smell.

Once I bit into it, I took a sniff–

And smelled hay.

Not fresh hay! Not grassy alfafa. No, like dried hay. The kind you’d feed to a horse. Yeah, I don’t know either.

So: hidden in this seemingly normal apple was, for me, a very weird apple.

I admire that. I admire the complexity of this apple. It’s fucking goofy. It’s all over the place. At the same time, it can’t help being what it wants to be. Cue the Sammy Davis Jr I gotta be meeeee. Just the same, it also made me wonder if I was having a stroke, and it’s also not an apple I’m going back to anytime soon?

So — 6.5.

Onward we go. Bumping it to a 6.5 I think from the 6 I gave it here in this video. Does anybody watch those? Sound off if you do. Also sound off in the comments if there’s an apple you want me to find and review, yeah?

Crimson Crisp: Hay is for horses, and hay is also for horseradish apples.

Today, a real clown nose of an apple: New Zealand’s Sweetie. It’s small and red and sucks. I’d love to leave my review right there but fine, I’ll go deeper.

It’s a Gala x Braeburn situation. Two apples I like well enough, but it’s like when two people you think are great get married and have a child you hate. Two wonderful people sometimes produce a real dickhead, you know? This pair of perfectly nice apples came together and had an annoying little fuckbaby of a fruit — a long and lop-sided little munchkin drunk who is shitty and I don’t like it. No sir. Not one bit.

My review of the Sweetie, bought late Sept, Manoff Orchard in PA:

It looks cute, this apple. Like a sheepnose Black Gilliflower. It’s a punchy pink-red with a green blush and a waxy sheen to the skin and you know, fuck this apple. I wanted to like it! I did! But it’s:

a) way too fucking sweet, absolute sub-acid sugar cube madness

and

b) way too fucking chewy; the apple flesh itself is juicy but has a kind of dull-witted crunch to it, but the skin, the skin, man it’s like eating wax paper, like chewing a mouthful of fortune cookie fortunes, it’s very unpleasant to eat

I found little complexity in the taste — maybe a hint of vanilla. But otherwise, it’s just sugar. Just sweet. And not even in an overwhelming or interesting way. If you want a rock candy version of fruit, you can get sweeter apples, so this apple isn’t even really bringing the full force of its name? It’s a Judas apple, just Red Delicious — seething with the squirming worms of deception.

As for the eating itself, well. The first breaking bite felt fine, as did the subsequent chew, but then the chew went on and on and on and on AND ON AND WON’T SOMEONE RID ME OF THIS MEDDLESOME FRUIT.

Listen, I’m being needlessly harsh. I know that. This isn’t technically an awful apple, it’s just the epitome of things I personally don’t like in an apple. Too chewy, too sweet, about as interesting as a sidewalk. I guess it’s nice enough. Dim children will enjoy it. A donkey! A donkey will be thrilled with you if you give it this apple.

I did a video review of it here, where I also said “rawdogging an apple,” so if you need that in your life, click on over! This does present a slightly new problem in that, my initial review had me feeling a little more favorable, whereas eating the rest of the apple off-camera made me hate it more. So I’m dropping it from a 3.5 to a 2.5 because fuck this stupid clown-nose clown-shoe apple. Honka honka.

The Sweetie: Make A Donkey Or Dim Children Happy