Honeycrisp apples went from marvel to mediocre
seriouseats.com
seriouseats.com
The article leaves a key point out. This fruit tree is really temperamental to water correctly. Irrigators love and hate this thing. Some fruit bears overwatering gracefully. But with this tree, it begs for water, but if you overwater it even a little, the fruit fails easily. I've watched some big players (Pytech) dump millions of dollars into closed (fully automated), open (just telemetry and recommendation, human then waters) and hybrid loop irrigation methods to try and get this right. It remains a real pain to get right.
(edit: the cosmic crisp is also difficult to grow Just Right(tm))
I actually live in MN so am spoiled by the easy access to quality varieties. Honeycrisp are so "common" here (grown here) that I definitely avoid WA grown stock that seeps into grocery stores more quickly than ever.
I currently have 4 apple trees on the property but have only lived with apple trees for about the last 4 years now. I can't even imagine getting the conditions for a Honeycrisp tree right given the trees I have seem very temperamental. Last year (summer of '23) was a horrible year for our trees due to the summer long drought. Some of my trees are in irrigation zones so they did get decent water, but still failed to yield much.
This year was bonkers. I clocked 34" of rain in my backyard and all 4 trees had the highest yield so far. While these varieties aren't as delicious as a freshly picked, ripe Honeycrisp, they're still 1000x better than any mealy, soft apple from the store that was picked 6+ months ago. The other thing with Honeycrisp is that all of the local orchards have netting protecting all the Honeycrisp because, since the skin is so thin, they're highly susceptible to hail damage. They just seem like too much work given I can buy them grown here.
Curious how long it will be before the automation is perfected? Is this a normal cycle with a new breed of apple?
Practitioners have amazing yields with tiny 5' tall fruit trees. I've seen some people do things that seem crazy like 4 different trees in one planting hole and it works fine.
https://www.davewilson.com/home-garden/backyard-orchard-cult...
While I agree they aren’t always the most tasty, they are almost always (like 98%) crisp and never mealy to the point I want to stop eating it, unlike nearly every other breed I’ve tried (which admittedly is only about 7-8 or the most common ones).
I will take a less flavorful crisp apple 100% of the time over a mealy apple.
So even a mediocre Honeycrisp is, to me, still way better than nearly all the other ones.
I’m fully aligned I eat apples for the texture above all else, with flavor being important but nothing close to how much crunch eat bite has.
Only real downside is that the appearance isn't very flashy; they're the russet potato of modern apples.
Sweetango is also consistently flavorful and crispy and normally better than Cosmic, but the availability is what's inconsistent.
(And a Fuji apple I had in Japan was as good as the best Honeycrisps)
You may enjoy the Fuyu Persimmon also. Eaten with firm skin is definitely crunchy. The flavor is moderately sweet.
Also some fuyu can still be astringent when very firm / underripe.
https://applerankings.com/sweetango-apple-review/
SweeTango's #1 fault, which the site calls out, is that they do not store well. The recent bags I've taken home are notably less crisp and hardy than earlier in the fall.
That said, they'll still be absolutely delicious for another few weeks, highly recommend buying a bag. Trader Joe's usually carries.
Even if I just got duds, they fail the consistency test that honeycrisps pass.
A childhood friend's dad is one of the people who developed the Honeycrisp and SweeTango (and Rave/First Kiss, Zestar, etc). We always had access to the latest and zaniest variants, but the Honeycrisp was just consistently very good. Yeah, sometimes you'd find an incredible fruit punch thing, but the next day you'd try another and it was gross and mealy. Honeycrisp was always reliable.
SweeTango is also excellent and reliable but it's harder to find and more expensive.
At the same time, it is worth noting that not everybody likes crisp apples, so the ranking in that website is... daringly interpretive.
For what it's worth, the only apples I buy, when they're local and in season, are McIntosh, which this site helpfully puts in the "pure shit" bin. That's just, well, wrong? Apples can be good without being bred for flavorless crispness like so many are today. And there's a difference between "soft" and "mealy", and good McIntosh apples are firmly (ha) on the soft side.
I like pink lady apples too, which this site rates "excellent", and honeycrisp are consistently acceptable - the Starbucks of apples - so it's not that they're making things up, but I think they are only rating apples along one axis and seem to have a thing for recent cultivars over classics and heirloom varieties.
"SugarBee® apples emit a sweet aroma and have high sugar content, generally reaching 14.6 Brix, compared to their parent variety honeycrisp, that reaches 13.8 Brix. "
https://specialtyproduce.com/produce/SugarBee_Apples_18673.p...
> Brian Frange is a comedian and writer who has been yelling about apples for years. He started yelling about apples professionally in 2016 while working on Comedy Central’s Not Safe with Nikki Glaser while serving as co-host on the Not Safe Podcast. [...] What started as a bit revolving around his love of apples has now become a full-time job where Brian makes $700,000,000,000 per week providing apple advice for wealthy fruit enthusiasts. Brian is not in the pocket of big apple and all reviews are inarguably accurate and not corrupted by corporate influence.
https://applerankings.com/about/
It's all in good fun. Obviously if you prefer Red Delicious you're free to [strikethrough]have terrible taste[/strikethrough] disagree.
I made the mistake of purchasing that variety once, and learned from that experience. Fuji apples, on the other hand, do not deserve a score of 56 FFS.
I'm told that the original Red Delicious are in fact very good. So good that we made them our Platonic ideal of "apple". And then... we targeted the wrong metric.
The slight sweet-bitterness to a real fresh red delicious apple is completely unmatched by any other apple variety I've ever had. It tastes like apple. It is satisfying and juicy and doesn't overwhelm your stomach with sourness or sweetness.
I think people just don't realize how fast Red Delicious apples go mediocre and have rarely tasted the real thing.
I wouldn't put much trust in it, at least if you are in Europe.
I like First Kiss (Rave) apples in August and early September, SweeTango in September and October, and Honeycrisp at any other time. SweeTango is my favorite, you can still get them as flavorful tennis/baseball size apples in MN vs the monstrous grapefruit sized flavorless Honeycrisp apples that seem to be everywhere these days.
There are still fantastic Honeycrisp apples available with lots of flavor, just ignore the gigantic ones.
Anyway, I'm mostly just salty that he panned the cosmic crisp. They're good this year!
That’s when I realized that they were very rarely mealy, something I’d been in search of for years.
But agree that the site is mostly intended to be a more humorous take on apples. (And, to be fair, it is quite funny.)
I really like granny smith apples for the sour flavor profile, but most review websites rate it poorly.
Pink lady's texture is not great and I find it too sweet.
You could also go down the cider apple route or even crabapples if you really want, though they often tend to be more bitter than tart.
If you're in the Midwest (especially MN, WI, Iowa, etc) you can get Haralson, which are kinda like Granny Smith but more just straight sour.
Haralson is probably my favorite. But disclaimer, I also like eating straight lemons, so ... yea. Many people will use Haralson only for baking.
I hear that in Europe they have a few types that are more sour, idk.
And a lot of cider apples
When I grew up, we had several crabapple trees in the yard. They very frequently bore fruit. My mom always told me these were toxic to eat, so I stayed away from them. Honeysuckle and blackberries, on the other hand...
I just googled it. It's a common myth, I suppose?
And I’ve never heard of the Cosmic Crisp, which is showing up in a lot of comments. Again, maybe regional?
The best apple variety is generally the new one. The market is strewn with the discarded remains of formerly good apples like Fuji and Gala.
I can imagine growers don’t like them as much though, despite the lack of patents and trademarks. In Europe they were abundant and amazing quality last year, lasting into February. This harvest their flavour wasn’t there, many were mealy, and they were unavailable within a month. Their worst year as far as I can remember.
Rubinette is a medium sized yellow apple, streaked in reddish brown. Not particularly eye-catching and also prone to fungal diseases. But Rubinette has a secret, is a seedling of Cox x Golden delicious, and its flavor is fantastic.
Modern apples with not so sophisticated flavor but better resistance can be much more satisfactory.
[1] https://www.scottfarmvermont.com/westfield-seeknofurther
It's not as good as a Bramley. Does anyone in the US grow those commercially? Why not?
And yes really the interesting thing is they're different and new. Tho I do really like cosmics. Especially if you dry them in a food dehydrator and then powder them into whipped cream.
Same deal with cherries.
I try to enjoy asparagus when it is in season, new potatoes when they are in season, etc. Just because some crops are bred for months and months of storage doesn’t mean they actually taste great.
Edit: All the honeycrisp in my area right now are oversized. I’m guessing because of a supplier change due to the season change?
And if you have a bit of land, start some trees! They are a wonderful gift for future generations. Plant a bunch and leave them alone, let the survivors flourish. Worst case they die and you have some good firewood for a bbq.
Apples are interesting and this is a great example of the unexpected challenges you can face growing them. Every honeycrisp tree is a perfect clone of the very first one, but the environment of each is not a perfect clone of their original environment. And the interplay of genetics and growing conditions can have very unpredictable results.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cosmic_Crisp
I think there is a newer cultivar that should be superseding the Cosmic Crisp here soon.
Edit - the Kudos Apple. https://twin-cities.umn.edu/news-events/talking-apples-u-m-0
Maybe it was a similar issue - off-season and stored too long, but I haven't seen any around here in years (midwest).
I encourage everyone to check out https://applerankings.com, I would describe it as Pitchfork for apple breeds.
Here’s their review of the Cosmic Crisp: https://applerankings.com/cosmic-crisp-apple-review/
Their top ranked apple is the SweeTango, and I agree with their assessment: https://applerankings.com/sweetango-apple-review/
Full ranking list: https://applerankings.com/pick-an-apple/
So it may not be as good at peak (or it might, here in WA the peak of the Cosmic Crisp can be pretty high indeed) but it should stay strong over the years.
Crisp and sweet.
I went through a big Honeycrisp phase and really enjoy them, but I have thin enamel on my teeth and frequent eating of uncooked Honeycrisp leads me to a lot of tooth pain, they're just a little too tart. They are my go-to baking apple though.
the magic of honeycrisp is that they're always about the same
https://www.opb.org/article/2024/08/24/wa-64-apple-naming-ws...
They also have the amazing attribute of browning very slowly - you can cut one and leave it out all day it will hardly change color.
So it's enterprise-ready. But is it webscale?
I never did like honeycrisp all that much, though. It’s a little too sweet and something about the flavor is just a little bit wrong. It’s hard to describe but it’s like they tried a little too hard to make the ideal apple. It’s alright and I’d be happy to eat one but I don’t buy them.
As others have pointed out, this article doesn't actually explain why (or even if) Honeycrisp has gotten worse. One thing I will add to this discussion, though I don't know if it is true in the case of Honeycrisp, is that it is definitely not a matter of breeding (nor selective breeding, breeding for storage, etc): in order to produce more apple trees, Honeycrisps (or any other variety) aren't bred, they are asexually propagated through grafting. That means all Honeycrisp trees are more-or-less genetically identical.
That said, just like any organism, as trees grow and produce new cells at the tips of branches, there is always a chance for a mutation. Sometimes these branch mutations (called "sports") have visible genetic differences: stronger coloration, earlier ripening, or perhaps earlier storage (though this is harder to notice). This is how Red Delicious went from a wonderful apple to tasteless, mealy cardboard: sports were selected over time that prioritized storage and color over texture and flavor.
As an apple grower, I have had the opportunity to taste Honeycrisps straight off the tree, and to me, they taste just as flavorless as the ones I get from the store. I grow almost all heirloom varieties, and I can tell you there is one that for me is head-and-shoulders above the rest: Wickson Crab. If you are in California, I recommend marking your calendar for September to search this variety out at the farmers markets (or better, plant a tree yourself!). There are many other wonderful varieties that stand out from grocery store apples. In a pinch, I'll get a Pink Lady from the store, as I find it's the most flavorful of the commonly available apples, but I find they sit heavy in my stomach in a way that homegrown or farmer's market apples don't. I believe this is to do with the fact that apples available at the grocery store are picked early, before the starches have converted into sugars, so the higher starch content may be harder to digest.
Hint: any apple with an "apple green" undercoat is underripe; to pick a ripe apple, wait for that bright green to mellow out or change colors. For redder apples, it can be harder to see, but most apples have some green visible under the red (Pink Lady is again a great example of this). And yes, Granny Smith apples are so sour precisely because they are picked and sold underripe; a ripe Granny Smith is yellow and sweet.
I’m not an apple expert, but I’m pretty sure that a lot of “supermarket varieties” like Pink Lady have higher cellulose which helps them withstand relatively rough handling. (For those who don’t know: Apples are extremely easy to bruise, you should handle them carefully and never ever press on them to test for ripeness!)
Please tell me that people don't actually do this. If you have seen it, let me know and I'll reach out to some of the major grocers to maybe add some signage in their produce section about evaluating apple ripeness.
I will, maybe, spin the apple in my hand lightly to determine if there's some notable damage, but I'd never press into the flesh and dent it on purpose. Maybe that's what you're seen people do?
Then again, in our zero consequences society, I wouldn't be surprised if people took the IDGAF attitude about damaging produce they don't intend on purchasing.
But for the average consumer, maybe a strong tasting apple is a put off. I personally choose and eat Honeycrisp consistently every time and I'm completely 100% satisfied with every apple I've had of it. There have been some better than others, of course, but still satisfied with the quality, taste and crispness regardless.
I have no doubt that maybe Honeycrisp just has such a mass appeal that apple experts might not actually prefer its taste. Maybe I'm just a "boring" white bread kind of apple consumer. I'm fine with this, honestly, because Honeycrisps make me happy. And when they are on sale for $1 / pound, they make me even happier.
It's possibly like wine this way too, where the very best wines are those that only the experts can really taste and appreciate. For me, the differences between varieties of wine is completely lost.
+1 to Wickson Crab. It's my favorite apple as well. I grew them in California, but my tree here in Vermont isn't bearing yet, so I'm not sure they'll be the same.
Dmitri, where are you growing them? And who is selling them at Farmer's Markets in California? I worked a lot of markets in the Bay Area, and I don't remember ever seeing them for sale (although that was 10 years ago).
Is no mystery at all what is happening here.
One of the things that I loved from plant physiology is how futuristic it is. Bordering black magic sometimes. For example. Do you knew that potions of eternal youth exist... for apples?.
You just need to apply some commercial product and this apple will kept brilliant skin, no wrinkles, and bright color for weeks. Fantastic, right? The sellers and the supermarkets will love that.
The only problem is that it cost sugar to keep it alive in this state of white-snow suspended animation. As long as there is sugar remaining it works. After a while you have a good-looking apple with a disappointing bland watery taste.
This is half of the explanation that the writer was looking for. The other half is a camera storage time too extended.
In that case I would suspect of application of Gibberellins to make the fruit bigger and alter the maturation time.
A year without enough sun, incorrect watering or lack of boron can also affect the flavor or the firmness of the meat.
Garlic is another item ruined by long storage. Christopher Ranch is reportedly storing garlic for 2+ years in refrigeration. That's why it doesn't taste like garlic anymore.
This is compounded by the subtle effect of the trees being adapted for Minnesota, whereas Washington’s climate is much warmer.
I worry a bit the same thing is happening with honeycrisp. In addition to the the out-of-season sales (some of the dates people are talking about with honeycrisp are ridiculous), there's genetic drift. The University of Minnesota has always been worried about this happening, speaking to staff with their apple program. The problem is clones get propagated from clones of clones, some of which are fraudulently hybrids with other varieties, and eventually you end up with something that's not really the same anymore. Big growers choose ancestors that produce fruit with the characteristics that benefit them, and by that point buyers don't remember the original anymore.
The problem, as people are pointing out, is largely what large-scale agriculture does to plant varieties in terms of breeding, as well as the problems with freshness. What the growers and distributors want from fruit is not what you want as a consumer. There's probably some important lessons there for capitalism or markets in general.
Edit: found the patent https://patents.google.com/patent/USPP22228
https://news.cornell.edu/stories/2013/08/snapdragon-and-ruby...
For new designer varieties getting commercial access to the grafts usually requires signing contract that you won’t create and sell your own grafts so the creator can control who gets it.
(I like sweetango too but it's hard to find)
It's really hard to unpack which of our vendors are truly local; and which just buy produce from wholesalers, slap a "Name's Family Farm" sign on the table, and pretend to be locally grown.
You'd be a lot better off going to the actual orchard, but those are often 1+ hours away.
I'm in Seattle. You would think I could reliably find good apples here.
I can not. Even at farmer's markets, it's obvious some of the offerings have been stored... which makes me question the stuff that isn't obvious. At least it's better than the supermarkets, which have been selling New Zealand apples... in Washington... in September... yeah no thanks!
Have you ever looked at the sticker brand on your apples? If not, pay attention next time. Rainier has the best Honeycrisps. They're phenomenal. All others pale in comparison.
This realization made my wife and I pay more attention across all of our produce. We'll choose to buy produce based on the brand that's currently in stock. It feels absurdly picky, but I find it refreshing to at least know why a batch of brussel sprouts, apples, oranges, etc. tasted more bitter or less flavorful than normal.
It makes sense when you think about it. People care where their coffee beans come from, with flavor preferences of one region versus another. Why shouldn't we have flavor preferences based on who grows our produce?
My new go to is the Magic Star variety, which has been sold as "Sprank" for the last 3 years at least in the Netherlands. These apples keep amazingly well; they ran out of stock around the summer in the last two years, but I found them delicious year round. I hope that this cultivar does not befall the same fate as the Honeycrisp, which I had the pleasure of tasting 5 years ago.
Apparently we like larger apples in the US while smaller apples are preferred in China.
My favorite is the kanzi, but it’s not really available year round. Most apples peak in November anyway
Here, the common apples you can see in supermarkets are Golden Delicious (called just Golden here), Royal Gala, Pink Lady, Fuji, Pippin, Granny Smith, Red "Delicious", Kanzi, maybe a few more than I'm forgetting, but no Honeycrisp or Cosmic Crisp as far as I know.
If Honeycrisp are supposed to grow properly only in climates like Minnesota's, then it doesn't seem likely that they will ever actually be grown in Britain (or Spain for that matter).
The issue is the supermarkets only carry a few types.
It would seem a shame to import a commercial variant from the US.
There do seem to be online shops that'll sell you a tree from many different strains though.
As with many things, the supermarket optimises for storage, shipping, uniformity etc, and in the end we all miss out on variety. It's even worse for that here in Australia - there are precisely three types of potato - red, white and purple skinned, and they're all much the same and pretty bland. There's a fourth 'gourmet' type (kipfler) allowed at really fancy stores.
Seriously, I hope you get honey/cosmic crisps -- they converted me to buying apples regularly.
The best in my opinion is Fuji followed closely by Gala.
I used to love Galas but ultimately realized about 50% of the time they were mealy.
Since swapping to Honeycrisp, I’ve yet to have a mealy one. Maybe occasionally (about 1 out of 20-30) there’s one that has a hint of mealiness, but far from what half of the Galas were.
I do agree that not all of them are super sweet/flavorful, but still most of them are, and I’d take a less sweet but still crisp apple any day over a sweet but mealy one.
I never tried Fuji much, but don’t remember them being anything special. This site [1] (shared at least once on HN) has Fuji even below Gala.
I’m firmly in your camp, I don’t care for mealy apples - I hear those people exist but don’t think I know any.
Also laughing because I perform the same apple analysis - this new variety looks good and admittedly the names are pretty effective marketing (honeycrisp, cosmic, etc…), but they tend to be comparatively expensive and after being let down some many times I just grab the Fuji
> There is a claim ... that “dividing by 0 is not allowed in mathematics, and hence this cannot be relevant to their work”, but in fact a mathematician is permitted to deduce b ≠ 0 from c = a/b, since a/b is undefined for b = 0. Redefining the notation to allow b = 0 breaks this. Unless it occurs to the author to state a conclusion c = a/b and a conclusion b ≠ 0, the proof assistant won’t check that b ≠ 0, whereas the reader will think that this has been checked.
Maybe he'll see this and can chime in.
It was a really long article about the history of the apple and difficult growing it, but I didn't see the title answered anywhere. It ended taking about surplus and storage requirements.
I got a tiny lot and started growing some berries, fruits and veggies. There's a masive selection for pretty much any given species. Do you want eat-off-the-plant or make a jam? Do you prefer more or less sugary taste? How much are you willing to maintain and defend them? If you're looking for analysis paralysis, gardening is the way to go.
Personally I’m after historical apples. I’ve two local classics. One breed is from 19th century, the other is probably older, but I don’t buy claims it’s coming from medieval era. Taste is nice and they survive pretty well with very little upkeep with no modern chemistry.
I also just planted few less-known modern colon style breeds. Fingers crossed few years later it will pay off.
The actionable information is in the beginning: honey crisp apples are not worth it anymore buy whatever instead. For me this keeps it from being insufferable. The stuff in the middle demonstrates what the conditions were like before it went mass market, which supports the conclusion that something changed and that it was likely related to the logistics of growing and distributing the apple.
If you don't like reading these articles, you could try using an LLM to extract a summary before choosing to dive in. I'm sure there are browser extensions for that.
Anecdotally, I had some pretty delicious honeycrisps last night (in WA).
As an example, during the peak of peach season in the region, a South Carolina Sam’s Club had pallets of California peaches!
They spoil fast and don’t transport well because the skin is extremely thin, but those same qualities make them excellent apples to eat.
Some ratings have them ranked a little lower because they aren’t very sweet but that’s what I love about them. They taste like apple. Not sugar. And the crisp/soft balance is awesome.
Edit: I read the apple rankings site which rates them very poorly. But if you actually read the review the complaint is about shelf life.
Read the comments where people have actually tasted it fresh and most of the commenters consider it the best apple they’ve tasted. But you gotta eat it freshly picked and/or as soon as you get it.
The local place I go to is straight from the grower and they have a 24/7 cold storage facility of apple bins operated by the honour system. All apples are $1 a pound.
Part of the issue here is that wineries have been historically more profitable than orchards so there are many fewer places to buy local fruit. In the past two years however, there has been cold snaps which have killed 50% and 90% of grape vines subsequently so people are starting to question the stability of wineries.
"This is because seedling apples are 'extreme heterozygotes'. Rather than resembling their parents, seedlings are all different from each other and from their parents." [1]
"To propagate a cultivar [variety], material from the original tree (scion) is joined to a rootstock. The rootstock provides the roots for the new plant and the scion forms the top part of the new plant, which produces the fruit. The rootstock comes from another cultivar selected specifically for its ability to grow well in the soil and induce desirable growth habits of the scion (such as dwarfing)."
"The scion is introduced to the rootstock by either grafting or budding. In grafting, a length of dormant wood from the original tree is notched into the rootstock. In budding, small buds are notched into the rootstock. Budding produces more trees from the same amount of wood than grafting." [2]
So when you read "cultivation", it's not like breeding green beans or corn, where you can crossbreed plants and come up with a new type that will "breed true" and then you can make a bunch of seeds to distribute. Cultivation is basically growing a bunch of trees, finding the right combo, then creating a bunch of them
So commercial growers with orchards will buy trees from breeders who create that type of tree by managing the grafting/budding process.
Apparently, though we don't know when breeding started, it's been going on for thousands of years.
Also, Johnny Appleseed wasn't doing anyone favors by spreading apple seeds everywhere because the trees would produce mostly inedible apples.
1. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple#Breeding
2. https://www.sciencelearn.org.nz/resources/844-breeding-a-new...
Red Delicious has to be the nastiest apple cultivar in existence. Why in the world are they growing that many? Replace them with something decent like Pink Lady.
But in the last 2 years, I didn't notice it, but I have been pretty dissatisfied with them but I never really thought about it until this article. It sheds light as to exactly why I don't like it anymore, and that's pretty sad that the industry is getting into that state.
Envy apples are my favorite. They tend to be more expensive than Fuji, but are about the same price now.
Shizukas can be grown here, which I strongly recommend. But honestly most varieties you can get direct from a farm are edible (except Red Delicious, which for some reason continues to be grown even in independent farms even though it's universally acknowledged to be trash).
Obviously way too many variables, but anecdotally, I haven’t been that impressed with organic apples.
Kroger's simple truth, sunkist's line of organic citruses they sell in "whole foods", etc.
the label means nothing, and when you see it in a big name grocery store it's probably a bad thing
Interview question: estimate number of pickers and number of trees.
There's the Cedar-apple rust issue, bug issues, and raccoon issues.
I planted figs.
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This time of year, my family hits an apple farm a few times and load up on Macouns, Gala, Cortlands and other local apples.
At first, they only had 2 rows of Honeycrisp apples. Maybe 2% of the trees there...
Now more rows are 'Honeycrisp' than not. As far as I know, they didn't replace all those previously 'not Honeycrisp' trees, though.
And they taste like paint. Ugh.
I suspect the popularity of honeycrisp will eventually lead it to the same fate as Red Delicious, but only time will tell.
Just make sauce out of the mealy ones.
I’ve got an apple tree that I’ve grafted 20 varieties onto. But honeycrisp isn’t one of them.
Side note: Those new jumbo blueberries are insane.
Some tomatoes are grown in hothouses now and are ok. My son gobbles them up and in the winter lots of them are from Western NY and Ontario.
Onions are definitely pushed to have higher sugar content now. Also greens that I source from local farms seasonally usually have better flavor.
Red Astrachan ftw
(iykyk)
Or check for local farms that sell free-range birds. They will have a more varied diet including insects, grubs, and not just corn or whatever they feed the birds at the big factory farms. They won't be cheap however.
But when I come home and taste some carrots my parents grow in their garden, oh my god - this is extreme premium in taste world. I understand its a different type, not created for maximal yield as quickly as possible. And so it goes with everything.
If you like various berries you can buy in stores, just don't ever taste wild ones in the forest, it will ruin them for you.
Feel like the same can be said about just all industrial revolution related inventions. The consumer culture caters to the wimp of convenience instead of the whole ecosystem.