Apple Review #10: Hudson’s Golden Gem

WE MUST BETRAY THE ALGORITHM AND BURN IT ALL DOWN wait I’m getting ahead of myself, sorry. Man, that’s a helluva way to open a fucking apple review, isn’t it? All right, to rewind a little —

Yesterday, I posted my video, uhh, “review” (more like a mukbang apple snack gang first impressions video, if we’re being honest) of the Hudson’s Golden Gem apple, but in it I posited the question: should I even keep doing them? The videos, I mean, not necessarily these reviews — it’s just, you know, Instagram is nice enough to show you the metrics on the posts that Instagram isn’t nice enough to actually show other people. Meaning, I get to see how poorly some posts do, largely in part because Instagram does not show everyone everything from the people they follow. The algorithm there is dominant, and prioritizes in your own feed not the accounts you follow but rather, a shit-ton of random accounts. And this has only gotten worse.

(Hilariously, every time I do a video that’s over three minutes, Instagram warns me a couple times — HEY WE DON’T SHOW VIDEOS OVER THREE MINUTES TO PEOPLE, ALERT, ALERT, YOUR CONTENT IS CRUSHINGLY LONG, THREE MINUTES AND THIRTY SECONDS IS TOO MUCH, WE WILL BURY YOU UNDER THE DIGITAL EARTH FOR THIS CRIME OF ATTEMPTING TO TEST PEOPLE’S ATTENTION SPANS, WE HAVE SENT THE POLICE TO YOUR HOUSE, YOU’RE GOING TO JAIL FOR A THOUSAND YEARS — and then I look at my top videos and they’re all videos longer than three fucking minutes. Is Instagram just fucking with me? I think it is.)

The additional fun is, of course, that I’m not only subject to The Almighty Algorithm, but further, I’m posting on yet another social media platform owned and operated by monsters who are actively, not passively, making the world worse. Not just in a, oh ha ha we’re ruining attention spans and posting slop slop slop way, but in the also we’ve helped develop a surveillance state and soon everyone will be wearing our privacy-destroying narc tech and oh sure we’ve helped a genocide or two way.

(You have to love how every tech company with any goodwill has, over the years, not only flagrantly shit itself, but further, has leaned hard into our current dystopia. “Ten years ago, we started our beloved app that delivers cat-themed videos to your phone and cat-based knick-knicks to your door. Now, Catbox CEO Jean-Luc Bandersnoot announces Catbox’s new initiative, where we are investing in a series of hunter-seeker rectal drones who will enter the colons of those who we believe have slandered us online. These drones will attach firmly to the intestinal wall, threatening to explode the next time our enemies even think of saying mean things about us. And don’t forget to subscribe to Jean-Luc’s new newsletter: this week he talks about how being a billionaire is basically like being a god, and how you’re all peons, and how he’s building a rocketship to take his friends to a planet he’s seen in his dreams that he calls NEW NARCISSUS. Thanks for using Catbox!”)

(I think I’ve gotten off the point a little.)

So I was like, what do I do? Are people even seeing these videos? My aim with them was never to like, Gain Clout or Make Content — I was basically going to eat apples and apple-related bullshit anyway, so I might as well film it. Which further gets me more comfortable doing stuff on video, because honestly I’m not that comfy with it? I thought it would be fun. And it is. But being yoked to a merciless algorithm at the same time caaaaan be a bit demoralizing.

Then again, maybe that’s just life in 2025. Endlessly demoralizing moments! Like with AI slop okay I won’t get started on AI slop again sorry, sorry, trying to delete *hits keyboard a few times, gives up*

I thought — do I want to go to TikTok? Maybe there’s an active AppleTok community over there that isn’t posting about capital-A Apple content but rather, lowercase-a apple fruit content. Or maybe I could be the first! Maybe I could colonize that space and ohhh that’s right TikTok is now further compromised by the Trump administration soooo fuck that, I guess.

Jesus, should I post these things to YouTube?

Well, that sounds terrifying.

Anyway, so I posited the question: should I keep doing them? The responses were quite kind. A few folks said they look forward to them, especially given *gesticulates broadly* All The Everything Going On All the Time, and as such, I think that means I’ll keep doing them. Whoever watches them, watches them, and whoever doesn’t, doesn’t — but I do think it’s a nice distraction for me, and maybe for you, too. If I give a little bit of weird apple joy to five people and am allowed to spread my sinister apple gospel, hey, I can take some time out of my week to keep that apple train a-rollin’.

All right, let’s review this next weird little fucker of an apple.

My review of the Hudson’s Golden Gem from Manoff Orchard, early Oct:

Okay, the Hudson’s Golden Gem isn’t that weird of an apple — but I do so love its name, which sounds like a panacea sold by some snake oil salesman out of a rickety wagon. COME GETCHER HUDSON’S GOLDEN GEM! CURES WHAT AILS YOU: IT’LL STIFLE YOUR GOUT, PUT THE VIM IN YOUR VAPORS, IT’LL EXORCIZE ALL YOUR ILL SPIRITS!

My apple encyclopedia (yes, I have one — this one, in fact, a seven-volume beast apparently soon out of print and now on sale) tells me that the apple was discovered in a fencerow by an A.D. Hudson, and sold at his (?) nursery in Tangent, Oregon. A largely unexciting origin, except perhaps for the part where I learned there is a town in Oregon called Tangent, which is great and belongs in a book somewhere. If only I knew someone who wrote those.

The Hudson’s Golden Gem has always been a mixed bag for me — each one has been of considerably different quality, and also each offering divergent qualities. Some of this is due to it being a fruit that apparently hangs long on the tree and does well in storage — and even after a month, changes itself considerably. (So I may need to keep my others in storage, just to see.) The time before last I had one that tasted so much like banana it was fucking silly. Time before that, the one I had was mealy and mushy and made my heart sad. Last time, the taste was good but the crunch was so dense and deep it was uncanny — the texture of raw potato.

So this time, what did I get?

I got a fucking pear.

This was a pear. Sure, it looks like apple and, y’know, is an apple, but also, it’s definitely a pear cosplaying as an apple, or an apple cosplaying as a pear. If you tasted this blindfolded, you’d absolutely believe you were eating a pear. And that’s fine. It’s lovely. It’s juicy. It’s over-sweet, pretty sub-acid, which for me, and not for you, is a ding — but you can look past that little dent by enjoying that it also brings a little complexity to the party: a hit of that fennel-anise vibe, and this time, no strong banana taste, just a distant tastebud kiss of banana Runts candy.

The crunch was not off-putting this time — still a deep, bone-vibrating crunch, with a bit of a chew to the dense, fine-grained applemeat, but this time it didn’t feel quite so existential, quite so cosmic horror.

The skin, roughly russeted, is not something you should care overmuch to eat, but I’m sure eating it will do wonders for your colon. And that’s the second time I’ve referenced bowels in this post, and I can’t do it a third time or I’m pretty sure I get flagged by the algorithm ha ha just kidding there’s no algorithm here, there’s just me blogsharting into the void! But I control it, I own it, and here I can say whatever I want, ha ha ha ha you fools.

Anyway. Nice apple if you can get it. It’s new to my local orchard — they tend to keep their odder heirlooms only for cider production and I’m hoping they also are willing to sell me some Esopus Spitzenburgs as eating apples because I love ’em, but they only turn them into boozy business.

Gonna call this a… let’s be generous, say 8 out of 10.

(Reviews so far this year: Honeycrisp, Sweetie, Crimson Crisp, Knobbed Russet, Cortland, Maiden’s Blush, Cox’s Orange Pippin, Reine des Reinettes, Ingrid Marie.)

Hudson’s Golden Gem: It’s a fucking pear