Apple Review #8: Reine Des Reinettes, Plus A Moment On The Subject Of Sadness

Sometimes I think, why apples? Why do I care? Why is this interesting to me? And it’s easy to lean on the… trivia, the history, all the fiddly bits about where the apple comes from, how it fits into American history, American culture, its ties to myth, to religion, to Prohibition, to how it reflects sin and how it reflects purity, how Johnny Appleseed fits into the story, how the FBI burned down cider orchards, why we say the phrase as American as apple pie. The history of apples, the agriculture of apples, the culture of apples — it’s a deep rabbit hole that is, apparently, filled to the brim with apples.

But I don’t think that’s it, for me. Not really.

I think it’s the… sadness they conjure. I don’t mean that an individual apple makes me sad. I don’t eat one, sobbing like a clown. Crunching into a juicy Cosmic Crisp doesn’t make me think about fights I had with my father, or when my dog died or something. But rather, it makes me think about books, and readers, and the culture at large because — okay, follow me here for a second — there are, what, thousands of apple varieties across the globe? In North America alone, some 2500 varieties of apple? And you go to the grocery store, how many do you see? At my store, you get, max, ten varieties, and that’s on a good day. You’ll find maybe more at your local orchard — but generally not many more. If there are 2500 varieties of apple in this country, you’ve never tasted… let’s go with, very optimistically, 2400 of those specimens. And that’s if you’re a diligent applehound, desperate to taste any apple you can slap into your clammy palm.

As a writer and as a reader, that makes me think of all the books no one will ever read. And not just read, but rather, remember. Let’s say there’s half a million books that are traditionally-published each year. Another couple million that are self-published. That’s new books. That come out every year. That you’ll never read, likely never even hear of. Months, years of effort and hope and dreams shoved into a book-shaped story-receptacle that just come and then go. And some of the books you have read will in ten years be forgotten. Maybe even by you! They’ll wander out of print. They’ll sink so low on e-book charts they join the rest of the pixilated slurry at the bottom of the digital drain. They, too, go away.

It’s like — you ever hear a song from a band in, say, the 60s or the 70s, and it’s a fucking banger, and you’ve never heard of the band before? And nobody you know has heard of that band? But that band had a career? And several albums? They did shows, had lives, maybe even had a hit or two, and now they’re ghosts, rarely summoned from the ashpile to wander the halls in the hopes of one grim and blurry sighting? One chord of music touching your ear?

Just as Big Agriculture has found the most basic-ass apples (looking at you, Red Delicious) in order to ship well, cost little, and be palatable to the lowest common denominator tastebuds, so too has Big Culture churned its way through art and music and story and shaved off all the interesting parts and curious bumps and extruded out a more pleasing tube of material — and that’s very cynical, I know, and also, I recognize, kind of wrong. Like, tons and tons of great books (and film and TV and music) get made and get (ugh I hate this word but it works with the apple comparison) consumed every year. It’s not like we’re starving for good art. But at the same time, that’s part of the problem. So much comes out and so much just fades into the wallpaper. And that’s in part because… it didn’t tickle the zeitgeist, it didn’t click with people, it wasn’t actually good, it was good but too weird, it was great but really too weird, it was too similar to something else that came out, or (and this one is quite likely) the companies that dictate the serving-of-said-art to the masses just didn’t put money and effort behind it. They wanted a Red Delicious but your book (or song or movie) is a Knobbed Russet so, eennh, sorry, get fucked, it’s gotta go. And that individual piece of art has its shot, and the shot makes no sound, it leaves no trace, it’s just a puff of smoke and the bullet tumbles forward, hitting nothing, eventually falling into the sea where it sinks, sinks, sinks, to the bottom. A graveyard of shots fired.

So apples, all the lost apples and forgotten apples and weird apples —

They make me a little sad because it makes me think of all the lost books, and the forgotten songs, and the weird art.

But, also, they make me happy because I’m able to rediscover these lost apples and perhaps talking about them makes you find them, too. And we can also do this with books, music, movies, whatever. Not just about the new thing, the shiny thing, the commodified fruit at the Big Mega Grocery Store — but old things, special things, precious things, lost things.

Put differently: find cool lost things and tell people about them.

OKAY, let’s do an apple review.

My review of a Reine des Reinettes apple from Scott Farm (VT), procured late September, eaten early October:

Some apples are really good, but not that interesting.

Some apples are really interesting, but they ain’t that good.

And then sometimes you find an apple that’s both.

And this, I think, is one of those.

The Reine des Reinettes, aka Golden Winter Pearmain, aka King of the Pippins even though Reine means Queen and Reinettes means… uhh, who the fuck knows. Little queen? (Googling it, you’ll find that Adam’s Apples blog talks about rebirth and froglets, so give that a go.) It’s fancy! It’s French!

Ooh-la-la.

A nice-sized apple, lightly russeted if that’s a thing, but not so rough you could scrub barnacles from a tugboat.

Medium to fine grained. Juicy, junior — real juicy.

First bite is full tilt pinball, just zoom to the moon with a tangerine citrus kick that puckers the mouth as it backfills with a complex sweetness — honey, anise, some kiwi. Plus a dried herb scent as you eat. When finished, a savory kind of sour kicks in and lingers — a funky tamarind twist. There is a slight astringency afoot — this almost powdery feel that makes it seem like you’re licking a moth’s wing as you eat. Likely from higher tannins. Still — not so astringent it scours the tongue.

Really love it. Happy to eat it. It’s a tasty, electric treat. The astringency maybe knocks it down a bit, as does the fact that there’s that thing where the flavor leaves before the apple does — it has a bit of a chew to it, so you’re still chewing while the apple goodness has fled the mouth. But just so. This isn’t like gum you’ve chewed hours past its flavor.

So, I didn’t rank it in the video here (I might stop ranking them in the video because honestly, I change it often enough as I eat the rest of the apple) (also does anybody actually watch the videos?) —

But I’m good to call this an 8 outta 10.

(Reviews so far this year: Honeycrisp, Sweetie, Crimson Crisp, Knobbed Russet, Cortland, Maiden’s Blush, Cox’s Orange Pippin)

(also, Staircase in the Woods is still $2.99 at your favorite e-book monger)

(also the book the apple sits on in that picture is Hot Wax, by ML Rio, an unfuckwithable rock-and-roll trauma bond novel you need to read)

Reine des Reinettes: A fancy French fuckboy, full of life, randy with lust