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Comment by prewett | Hacker News Reader

I wish they'd sell old varieties of apples. The new ones all insist of having Red Delicious (so called) as part of the genetic makeup. It does not impart a good flavor. There are all these nice old ones, like Cortland and Winesap, but you can't get them anywhere.

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In Sweden and I think Europe, there seems to be quite much product development in apples. I think one of the reasons is that storage seems to have been more or less perfected so that the produce can be sold over almost a whole year.

Using only traditional methods there are several "new" Swedish varieties, Aroma, Frida and Saga that are very nice - and especially Saga is absolutely fantastic - On par or better that international varieties Jazz, Pink Lady and Honeycrisp.

Some of the more traditional varieties are also sold more and for a longer period because of the improved storage, even though that I think they have a shorter storage window.

Another reason I think is that not all of these varieties thrive as small trees, and most factory farmed trees are kept small because it makes picking them easier.

I love Boskoop, and they are thankfully still all over German supermarkets. If not, Holstein Cox will do, and if they have it, Elstar.

The real good ones, like Berlepsch, are hard to find here, though, unless you travel to a plantation.

+1 on Boskoop. But also Cox Orange and James Grief

Also love Boskoop, but I feel like they can be more difficult to find than other Apples in German supermarkets.

Any other Apple variety just feels not nearly as juice and regularly too sweet for my taste - especially when you want to use them for baking.

Cosmic crisp seems very commonly available(at least, here in colorado) and has a great taste and texture with no red delicious genes present

Honeycrisp is still a grandchild of golden delicious, though as it turns out not the one the university intended. They claimed it was Macoun and Honeygold but it was a different one of their test experiments after genetic testing.

There's an apple orchard that sells at the farmers market in my city with >40 seasonal varieties, most of which you'd never see at a supermarket. Apples grow well in a lot of the US, its worth looking for local options

I always feel personally attacked when people bad-mouth (ha) the Red Delicious. It's true that many are this mealy disaster -- but I think that's a product of crappy long cellar times and trying to get money for 'old' apples. If you get a good fresh one, it should be the right level of tart, sweet, crisp, and juicy. And when they are good, they are probably my favorite. It's just so damn hard to get the good ones and no great ways to tell if they're good before biting in.

I've picked them straight from the tree and they still end up a mealy disaster. But hey, maybe I'm just bad at picking 'em.

They’ve long since been overbred to look pretty at the price of texture. They’ve done the same to Macintosh, too.

That makes sense, they were by far the prettiest apples at the orchard near me. Of course that just makes it all the more disappointing when you go to eat one.

Oddly enough, the same exact thing has happened to Macintosh computers...

Because golden delicious and red delicious were everywhere in the 90's and spontaneous hybridization is a very, very low success rate.

Ambrosia apples appear to be a spontaneous cross of grandchildren of Golden and Red delicious apples.

I’d like to see a citation - I’m not sure this Red Delicious assertion is true.

Depends on where you are maybe? Cortland is still readily available here (Quebec). Hope it stays that way, I'm feeling slightly worried. Seems like the trend of trademarked new apple varieties has not quite caught up here yet as orchards are not interested in replacing tried and true stocks.

Yeah, I think my neighbor has a few Cortland trees in New England. Lots of Mcintoshes which aren't great for cooking but generally good for eating. Apples are probably about the last thing I'd say you couldn't get varieties of.

Not if you have a local amish plug

Have you ever even Honey-Crisped, Bro?

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