Apple Review #33: Black Oxford

To talk about this apple, we first talk about other apples.

Let’s talk about the Black Diamond apple, because I get sent this every once in a while — a meme goes around, like this one —

Or this right here —

And everyone goes ooh and ahhh and they’re like WOW BLACK APPLES HOLY CRAP, THESE ARE CLEARLY THE DEVIL’S APPLES, I WANT SOME, but I think there’s a few things to note here.

First, shit you see on the Internet is and has often been bullshit, and that was true before AI got its uncanny fangs into our online realities, and at this point you should be increasingly skeptical of most things you read — honestly, I might not even be real. I’m doubting my own existence!

Second, usually things that sound too good or too extreme to be true often are too good or too extreme to be true, because few things are that good or that extreme. Most things are in the bell of the curve, not the edges.

Third, things that seem designed to be spread — to be memeified, or to go viral — are also often, say it with me, bullshit. If it’s a short punchy piece of cool information in a neat little square, it wants to be shared — or more to the point, it means someone wants you to share it. They want you to fertilize the world with horseshit.

(It’s why right now you can go on Facebook and see shitloads of people — of all ages, amongst people you certainly know and trust — spreading unsourced unlinked things with obviously-AI images, because these things make them feel good, or feel mad, or feel wonder, or feel something anything at all. Never mind the fact that it’s very easy to check the reality of the claims they’re reposting — even with enshittified Google. Never mind that when you tell them it’s AI, they’re like, “that’s okay, because I like it anyway.”)

So, then, the Black Diamond apples.

That meme above isn’t the only one I get — sometimes it’s other photos, sometimes it notes that these are like, sacred apples grown in Tibet and they were found in the Buddha’s own peaceful armpits or what-not and they are so healthy they’re basically magic they cure bad skin bad hair bad breath bad cancer — aaaaand you know, this just isn’t reality, as far as I can tell.

It seems like:

a) the Black Diamond is a real apple

b) it’s just a normal, maybe not even that great, apple, very reddish-purple, still cool, not black, designed more to be delightful in a gift box than in the mouth, and potentially Photoshopped to look darker and more impressive

(I’ve seen them compared to Red Delicious apples, soooooo. Yeah.)

(If you want some inside baseball chatter about it — this thread, here.)

The funny thing is, we actually have apples right here that tend to grow pretty dark. This is just a regular-ass Red Delicious I bought some years ago at a grocery store — it’s not black, but it’s definitely the color of, um, a blood-spattered ruby slipper, wouldn’t you say?

The photo at the fore of this post is the subject of this review, the Black Oxford — and I took a shot from another angle, and you can see from that angle the purpleyness (not a word) is heightened —

Or there’s the Arkansas Black, as well. I’m sure there are others, to boot. Heck, the Blue Pearmain — which I regrettably did not get any of this season! — literally has a blue hue to it due to the dusty blueish bloom upon its skin. (I’ve no idea what that “bloom” is — if anybody knows, drop a comment.)

Anyway — case in point, the Internet is often full of shit, but also, there’s often actual true things that are just as cool as the bullshit you find online.

All that being said? Let’s review this fuckin’ apple.

My review of a Scott Farm (VT) Black Oxford apple, early-Nov:

This apple is a lightless void. Its skin is the Homeric winedark sea, and its flesh is as dense as a collapsed star. It’s a heavy apple. You could knock a toddler’s head off with this thing. I mean, don’t! Don’t do that! But you could.

The skin is somewhat forbidding, but not terribly so. The flesh really is dense, which lends itself to a diligent chew — you’re gonna have to CHAW down on this thing, so if your CHOMPERS ARE WEAK, this apple is going to tell you to get fucked. No sad soft teeth for this apple. You gotta have a rock-tumbler mouth to eat this apple proper-like.

The taste is —

Honestly, it’s pretty wild.

It’s more sweet than tart, but there’s a tart tang in there. I think the sweetness, though, gets pretty interesting — my first thought was, “This tastes like black cherry soda,” and then my second thought was, “That’s wrong, this tastes like Dr. Pepper.” And it does. The herbaceous-spice vanilla prune cherry captured-ghost corn syrup weirdness of DOC PEP is in the flesh of this apple.

There is a darkness in the heart of this apple, but the darkness is not Satanic or Luciferan — it is not there to buy your soul at a crossroads at midnight, nay. The darkness is the darkness of the night sky, the darkness of reduced cherry juice, the darkness of a ruby Port.

Maybe only one or two demons in there.

It’s nice. It’s pretty. It’s tasty. Go get one.

I feel like we can call this a solid 8.2 outta 10.

I eat it here. Wendigo mukbang, baby.

Black Oxford: Cheerful Goth kid who loves Dr. Pepper

Reviews in 2025: 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, Cosmic Crisp