Apple Review #3: Crimson Crisp

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.