Apple Review #31: Cosmic Crisp

Gotta chase that sweet, sweet Honeycrisp dragon — that’s the thing, right? So many of our grocery store apples are, at this point, chasing the success and the flavor of the vaunted and beloved Honeycrisp apple. They want that honeyed sweetness with the big crispness and the epic juice and, at the end of the day, if that comes in an apple that’s easier to grow and easier to transport, so be it. (Doubly so if it’s an apple they can control better in terms of who can sell it, grow it, distribute it.)

Enter: the Cosmic Crisp.

It is, itself, a Honeycrisp x Enterprise collab — it’s hardier than the Honeycrisp, and arguably crunchier and juicier at the same time. It can only, only be grown in Washington state — er, also, Chile, apparently? — and has actually led to instances of apple piracy, with people stealing trees to plant in other states. And if you read that link, you’ll further see what a massive fucktangle you get looking at Big Agriculture — these are not small, scrappy entities. You’ll see private equity in there. You’ll see names like Goldman-Sachs, Bill Gates, Harvard University in there. I think like with so many things inside our capitalist nightmare, at the ground level of these monster-sized corporate entities you have people who genuinely care about both the individual product and the category of products — meaning, people who care very much about their apple, but also, apples in general. But then as you go up the chain, interest in the product is superseded by interest in money. The product is just a chit, a marker, a physical representation of investment and profit, a money tulpa. Doesn’t matter what the widget or dongle is; as long as it conveys cash, it’s interesting to them for that singular characteristic. And that’s a bummer. Money is a bummer. I’m not saying I hate people getting paid for cool things, but when you leap containment and that thing just becomes a wealth amulet, you know you’re in dicey territory. And with apples…

I mean, do we need to re-do the Red Delicious lesson?

Or the encroaching Honeycrispocalypse?

(It’s kind of like publishing. The people I know in publishing are nearly all amazing, thoughtful, fascinating people who care very much about books and writers. The publishing industry, meaning the giant ever-shifting architecture around and above them, is also controlled by people, many of whom don’t probably give one sticky fuck about books or authors — and it’s enough that this mechanized architecture becomes ultimately faceless and profit-driven. And so the industry stops caring about individual books and more about TRENDS and COOL GENRES and POPULAR TROPES and it aims for them even if that’s… the equivalent of overplanting Honeycrisp or breeding Red Delicious until it’s very red, but not very delicious.)

(Sorry, little bitta inside baseball there.)

So — the Cosmic Crisp.

It’s viewed by some as the heir to the Honeycrisp throne. And I’ve liked it quite a lot in the past. How did it hold up this time? Did it win my heart? Did it win my mind? Have I formed a sinister cult around it?? AM I IN THE CORNER, GIBBERING ITS NAME OVER AND OVER AGAIN?

My review of the Cosmic Crisp from Giant grocery store, PA, late-Oct:

Well, shit.

That’s the review.

Well, shit.

To unpack this a bit:

This wasn’t as good as I wanted it to be!

The positive: probably the juiciest apple I’ve yet eaten this season, maybe ever. You can watch the video here and honestly, it gets pornographic how the juice floods out of the apple. And it was lovely juice. It’d be wise to buy a batch of these and just juice them to drink — it would be phenomenal.

That said… you know, the rest wasn’t as good.

The crunch was nice! It’s a good crisp, breaking apple. Honestly better cut into slices you can break them like pieces of slate — biting into it outright is not as pleasing. The flavor, well. Well. It was fine? It’s fairly straight-down-the-middle with the one notable complexity being: redolent with rose. And that is not one of my favorite apple flavors. It tastes like grandma perfume a little. And I don’t want my apple-eating experience to be in any way reminiscent of macking on someone’s Gamgam, you know?

Leave GamGam outta this.

So, it’s floral, but not a floral I like.

This is not the Cosmic Crisp I’m used to. Now, I’m willing to believe this was simply not the best example sample of a Cosmic Crisp apple — after all, the one I had was beat-to-shit. It looked like it had been shanked in apple prison. Someone slashed it with a shiv made from apple seeds or something. It was a rough customer, and so that is indicative that maybe it’s not the best version of this apple at the outset, and that maybe translates to lesser flavor.

Still, what a bummer.

As such, I can’t rank this higher than the Honeycrisp, and if I’m being honest, I can’t even rank it as high as the Honeycrisp. I know! I know. To be honest, if it weren’t for the absolutely lovely flood of cidery juice this thing purged from its cells, it might’ve even ranked lower.

I’ll try to eat another before the season is over and add to the review.

But for now?

Can’t go higher than 6.7 out of 10.

GO ON, GEN ALPHA, HAVE YOUR WAY WITH IT. SAY YOUR LITTLE CATCHPHRASE. DO YOUR LITTLE GESTURE.

In the meantime, the Opal holds the “best grocery store apple” award this season.

Cosmic Crisp: So far, not out of this world, but rather, very much of this world, probably somewhere not that awesome like Scranton, PA or Ohio, even though it was grown in Washington state, or maybe Chile

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, Winter Banana, Ribston Pippin, Rhode Island Greening, Roxbury Russet, Opal