Apple Review #26: Winter Banana??

We’ll get to the fact I’m reviewing an apple called a banana (shades of A Man Called Horse) in a moment: up front, let’s talk about food insecurity. We are entering a time of grave economic uncertainty — SNAP benefits are going away, health insurance costs are skyrocketing, inflation is simmering to boil, jobs are rotten fruits falling off the tree, and just in general, things ain’t great. And let’s be clear, that’s not happening in a vacuum — it’s not because it’s Mercury in Retrograde or some kind of external astrological circumstance, but rather, because we are under the boot of a cruel and callous administration run by autocrats and king-lickers who are glad to throw the lower and middle classes into a wood-chipper that turns them into chum to feed the wealthiest among us. As such, this is a very good time to —

Donate to a food bank!

I recommend Philabundance, but certainly, certainly you have local food banks to you, and you are more than welcome to drop links to those food banks in the comments below. Note, too, that generally the recommendation is to donate money to food banks rather than, well, food. They know their food needs and can spend the money accordingly — and often more efficiently. If you are donating food, my understanding is that communicating with the food bank to understand their needs first is helpful!

I’m sure somewhere here someone is very inclined to yell at me for bringing politics into these fun (“fun”) apple reviews — well, I mean, feel how you feel, but honestly? Eat shit. Eat all the shit instead of eating delicious apples. Food is inherently political. Agriculture and produce is inherently political. Think of all the things that goes into food: who has access to eat it, to grow it, how it’s kept safe, what companies dominate that market, where it is imported from and exported to, what food is kept to the wealthy and kept away from the poor, and so on. Food is political no matter who is in the White House — and with the current motherfucker up in there, the chaos inherent in our food system has never been more apparent.

So, drop a link to a food bank or click the ones people leave, and give some money, help people get the food they need. Cool? Cool.

All right. With all that said —

Let’s review an apple.

My review of a Winter Banana from Scott Farm (VT), late-Oct:

This is an apple called a banana. I am sorry to drop that cognitive dissonance in your lap, but here we are. Don’t even think about how there’s a banana called an apple-banana. (They’re amazing.)

Let’s just get this out of the way right now: this Winter Banana sucked, and not just because it didn’t even have enough banana to deserve the name, but because the texture was the texture of an old carrot that had gone too long in the fridge. You know the kind of carrot I’m talking about. That dread, rubbery thing. That floppy orange dong in the bottom of the veggie drawer. No crispity-crunchity texture, no hard-breaking snap — but rather, a dildoian character, a turgid latex tube of compressed vegetation. So right out of the gate, the texture was deeply off-putting to me. And the skin was shiny and waxy and didn’t help matters.

Really, though, all that could be skirted past should the flavor be amazing. And was it? Was it amazing? Will this apple pull itself out of the nose-dive?

It was not, and will not.

The flavor was absolutely mid. It wasn’t the “this Red Delicious tastes like apple-scented zero-calorie water” thing, but it wasn’t really doing much of a tap-dance in my mouth. The best thing I can say for the flavor was that it was somewhat refreshing, and called to mind some of the elderflower juice I had in places like Copenhagen, Oslo, Stockholm. Nice, light, floral. And it gets extra points for being fairly pretty — an ethereal, ghostly green with a true rosé blush to it. But that flavor was short-lived, and its beauty forgotten once you bite into it.

Oh, and did it have its trademark banana scent or flavor? Nnyyeaaaah no? Not really? I got a whiff of green banana upon biting into it, but that was the first and last scent of it, and caught zero ‘nanner taste out of it. So, even there, a sort of pre-promised perk of the apple didn’t show up to the party.

Meh? Meh.

3.3 outta 10 is what you get, silly banana.

Video here.

Winter Banana: I’d rather have an actual banana, and bananas are mostly terrible

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, Opalescent, Orleans Reinette, Black Gilliflower, Red Delicious Double Feature, Jonathan, Ruby Mac, Crimson Topaz, Esopus Spitzenburg, Mutsu, Hunnyz, Winesap, Stayman Winesap