Apple Review #14: Opalescent

Well, fuck this apple. I mean, don’t fuck this apple — here at Apple Snack Gang headquarters we do not condone apple-fucking. We love apples, but we don’t love-love the apples, you know what I mean? So put your pants back on.

Anyway, I’m just gonna jump right in here:

My review of this piece of shit Opalescent apple, Scott Farm, early-Oct:

You ever meet a well-meaning person who sucks? Sure, okay, they’re bright-eyed. They’re not a dipshit. They get the job done, perhaps even excelling at said job. They were on Student Council. They were in all AP classes. And yet, their eyes are kind of glassy, their gaze somehow both desperate and empty? At the end of the day you really don’t want to spend any more time with them than you have to because there is absolutely nothing interesting about them and it feels like just by being near you they are wicking away your time, your attention, your very existence?

That was this apple.

This is a beautiful apple.

And it is largely devoid of flavor.

It’s got a few characteristics worth talking about:

First, it is genuinely a pretty apple. Very shiny. Very red. For some reason, on Pomiferous it is also described as “very greasy,” which is a curious description I’m not used to with apples. GUESS WE GOT OURSELVES AN OILY BOY. Except this apple wasn’t oily or greasy in any way? But red. Waxy. Bright. It is a well-produced apple. Good job, nature gods. You got the look down!

Second, that skin is thin and yet deeply resilient — it’s not tough, but rather, pops like you just bit into a natural-casing sausage. It’s like chomping through a fucking kielbasa. As I’ve noted before, my family doctor some years ago gave me a prostate exam and referred to my butthole as having, and this is a true story, “good snap.” I would describe this apple as having good snap.

Third, the flavor is almost something. It has the desire to be more than it is. It kind of starts out with this strawberry whiff, as others have found, but it’s also one of those unripe too-white-on-the-inside strawberries you really only want to eat dipped in a fucking shitload of sugar. Then it’s gone. It’s like someone painted the apple with a light veneer of lemon juice and powdered sugar — but it’s gone three seconds into the chew.

And then it’s just a wad of flavorless, unscented apple. You know how some people buy unscented deodorant? This apple is unscented deodorant. It’s the gum in a pack of Garbage Pail Kids, except with flavor that dies even faster. It’s like licking very pretty wallpaper. Except that wallpaper probably tastes like something.

The flesh is blah blah and the grain is whatever who cares. Fart noise.

I’ll try another in my batch to see if maybe that one was just a little stinker. I’m to understand that this may be one of those apples you really, really need to eat right off the tree, and after that it’s a series of diminishing returns. (Other apples are shit right off the tree and only gain with a week or a month in storage. What a world of wonder are these mad fruits!)

Either way, I hate this apple not because it’s bad, but because it’s boring. It’s like a calculator. Like Elmer’s glue. Like a Reese Witherspoon movie. It’s just there, taking up space on the counter, in your mouth, in the world.

I think 2.4 out of 10 is a perfectly dull score.

Watch me eat it here, if you dare.

Opalescent: Meh

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, Holstein, Suncrisp, Ashmead’s Kernel