I should point out that my new header image contains one of my most significant pet peeves as a greengrocer. Note also that I'm waffling on header images-I'll settle on one at some point, but as we traverse the nadir of the year, I've yet to settle on any number of things.
ANYWAY...I love XKCD, it's one of my favorite webcomics. But in this case, he's made a terrible error. I won't quibble with his obviously subjective qualifications of taste-fruit appeals to different people differently, like anything else. And from a strictly professional standpoint he seems to have measured out the "difficulty" scale more or less accurately (though on the actual comic's site, the rollover bemoans the difficulty of cracking coconuts, suggesting they're "off the scale". This inaccuracy can be attributed to a layman's unfamiliarity with coconuts' numerous mysteries. When you know what you're doing, a coconut's no harder to open than a dead man's wallet.)
No, dear friends, my objection, the thing which fills me with a terrible rage, is his arbitrary segregation of apples into only two categories, "red" and "green". I'm shaking, even as I write this. Even now, on the far side of apple season, we currently carry no fewer than 10 different kinds of apple, many of which might be described as either. In my experience, for those people who lack even the most basic education in the taxonomy of produce "red" apples are usually Red Delicious, the nation's most common and most poorly named apple varietal for most of the last century. Delicious apples in general are uninterestingly sweet and universally mealy. Bland, grey, soviet apples.
"Green" apples, on the other hand, are usually Granny Smiths-a tart, crunchy apple that is good for cooking, and is in many respects (should you get a good one) the polar opposite of a Delicious apple. So that's two types, two of the most common. But in this, the Golden Age of Food, I'd think that anyone cosmopolitan enough to have broadband access to the internet would also have at least passing familiarity with Fujis (the bourgeois Red Delicious), Braeburns (a tart and crisp eating apple that keeps well and is also good for cooking) or perhaps this year's celebrity apple, the Honeycrisp (plebian, lowest-common-denominator crap, with a sweetness that recalls corn syrup and a crunchy texture best described as plastic. Still, they are popular). For those of you with whom I do not work, let this be your window on my greengrocery-this rant is almost verbatim my usual response to customers asking for Green or Red apples. 'Ware your local greengrocer, he/she might just be a True Believer.
No, dear friends, my objection, the thing which fills me with a terrible rage, is his arbitrary segregation of apples into only two categories, "red" and "green". I'm shaking, even as I write this. Even now, on the far side of apple season, we currently carry no fewer than 10 different kinds of apple, many of which might be described as either. In my experience, for those people who lack even the most basic education in the taxonomy of produce "red" apples are usually Red Delicious, the nation's most common and most poorly named apple varietal for most of the last century. Delicious apples in general are uninterestingly sweet and universally mealy. Bland, grey, soviet apples.
"Green" apples, on the other hand, are usually Granny Smiths-a tart, crunchy apple that is good for cooking, and is in many respects (should you get a good one) the polar opposite of a Delicious apple. So that's two types, two of the most common. But in this, the Golden Age of Food, I'd think that anyone cosmopolitan enough to have broadband access to the internet would also have at least passing familiarity with Fujis (the bourgeois Red Delicious), Braeburns (a tart and crisp eating apple that keeps well and is also good for cooking) or perhaps this year's celebrity apple, the Honeycrisp (plebian, lowest-common-denominator crap, with a sweetness that recalls corn syrup and a crunchy texture best described as plastic. Still, they are popular). For those of you with whom I do not work, let this be your window on my greengrocery-this rant is almost verbatim my usual response to customers asking for Green or Red apples. 'Ware your local greengrocer, he/she might just be a True Believer.
1 comment:
pink ladies! what about pink ladies! delicious.
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