Apples

Not everything is better than it was twenty-five years ago, but some things are: one of them is the increased variety of apples available to the American consumer, or at least to some consumers, or at least to me. Apples were not great last year, at least for me. Honeycrisps were a failure, Fujis were soft and disappointing. This year is much better so far, and I’ve been apple-obsessed.

Fifteen years ago I lived in Sebastopol, CA, the proud home of the Gravenstein, considered a pie apple, rather than a table or eating apple, grown now more as a novelty rather than the local economic driver it once was. It was exciting to live someplace with such pride in a local fruit. Thirty-five years ago in New York City we had Red Delicious, Golden Delicious, occasional Yellow Delicious (which was maybe just a polish on the Golden?) and, in the fall, MacIntoshes. They were an exciting local apple, like Gravensteins, a point of pride for New York State.

My father loved MacIntoshes. I don’t remember my mother ever eating an apple, which doesn’t mean it didn’t happen, although she loved pears, and would eat a few each fall with a lot of delightful fuss and hyperbole. For Thanksgiving and Christmas my father would make apple pies, which were good, but were my least favorite of the desserts my non-cooking not-Christian father would excitedly bake for the holidays: pecan pie (the best; I think his recipe was from the Joy of Cooking, or maybe straight form the corn syrup bottle?), Italian cheesecake (I don’t know where the recipe came from but it was barely sweet, flavored sometimes with anisette, and ricotta-based), creme brûlée. I didn’t love apples back then (back then being, let’s say, 1971-1989), but they were always evocative: apple cider and apple cider doughnuts and apple butter were markers of fall that couldn’t be replicated in summer, like turning leaves and early sunsets. Cider and doughnuts said that the earth is changing, life is changing, and that the summer that passed is over now, forever.