What happened to Macintosh Apples?

[Geoff Rove]

I bought some Macs after not having any for 10 years.
Just no flavor at all. I've never seen any Organic Macs, if they exist they are getting exported.

[Michael Trew]

On 3/16/2022 15:25, Geoff Rove wrote:
> I bought some Macs after not having any for 10 years.
> Just no flavor at all. I've never seen any Organic Macs, if they exist they are getting exported.

I'm not sure. We've always bought McIntosh apples (I assume that's what
you mean, and not Macintosh computers) for apple pie, and I can't say
that I've noticed a difference. Perhaps the time of year is the issue.
I know that apples are a lot more fresh in the fall, and at this
point, many of them may have been in cold storage for many months (not
as fresh).

Cross-posted to rec.gardens.edible

[songbird]

Geoff Rove wrote:
> I bought some Macs after not having any for 10 years.
> Just no flavor at all. I've never seen any Organic Macs, if they exist they are getting exported.

out of season means they've been stored. how they've been
stored can affect quality. most of the time the best approach
is to buy them in season from a reputable seller (so you can ask
and get an accurate answer about if you are buying old stored
ones from previous years or not).

i only buy them in season from someone i know.


songbird

[fos]

On 2022-03-16, Geoff Rove <jgro...@hotmail.com> wrote:
> I bought some Macs after not having any for 10 years.
> Just no flavor at all. I've never seen any Organic Macs, if they exist they are getting exported.

i just bought two new iPads, one for my wife and one for my mom. does
that count? ;)

--
f...@sdf.org
SDF Public Access UNIX System - https://sdf.org

[Sheldon Martin]

No orchard keeps apples for more than a week before they become cider
or sauce. Orchards sell 'drops' for cheap, perfectly good, very
fresh, only a bump. Orchards don't store apples, what they can't
use/sell within a week feeds the critters. I live in apple country,
apples are used for pies and to fatten livestock, pigs/cattle... the
most popular name in the Northern Catskills (Rip Van Winkle Land) for
pet livestock is Motts.

When you need enough to cook something special it's best to go to an
apple orchard or grow your own. Growing apple trees isn't much
work... plant some semi-dwarf trees, easy to keep pruned and
harvest... most commercial orchards plant semi-dwarf.

[Sheldon Martin]

On Fri, 18 Mar 2022 11:52:16 -0400, songbird <song...@anthive.com>
wrote:

>Geoff Rove wrote:
>> I bought some Macs after not having any for 10 years.
>> Just no flavor at all. I've never seen any Organic Macs, if they exist they are getting exported.
>
> out of season means they've been stored. how they've been
>stored can affect quality. most of the time the best approach
>is to buy them in season from a reputable seller (so you can ask
>and get an accurate answer about if you are buying old stored
>ones from previous years or not).

WHO THE FUCK SAVES FRESH FRUIT FOR YEARS?

> i only buy them in season from someone i FUCK.
>
> songbird

[Ed Pawlowski]

On 3/18/2022 2:32 PM, Sheldon Martin wrote:
> On Fri, 18 Mar 2022 songbird wrote:
>> Geoff Rove wrote:
>>> I bought some Macs after not having any for 10 years.
>>> Just no flavor at all. I've never seen any Organic Macs, if they exist they are getting exported.
>>
>> out of season means they've been stored. how they've been
>> stored can affect quality. most of the time the best approach
>> is to buy them in season from a reputable seller (so you can ask
>> and get an accurate answer about if you are buying old stored
>> ones from previous years or not).
>> i only buy them in season from someone i know.
>>
>> songbird
>
> No orchard keeps apples for more than a week before they become cider
> or sauce. Orchards sell 'drops' for cheap, perfectly good, very
> fresh, only a bump. Orchards don't store apples, what they can't
> use/sell within a week feeds the critters. I live in apple country,
> apples are used for pies and to fatten livestock, pigs/cattle... the
> most popular name in the Northern Catskills (Rip Van Winkle Land) for
> pet livestock is Motts.

Except for the ones that store apples through the winter. When I lived
in CT there was a three story building just to store from the local
orchards. They replaced most of the oxygen with carbon dioxide to keep
them from deteriorating. They kept for months.

[Brazza]

On Fri, 18 Mar 2022 14:36:49 -0400, Sheldon Martin <penm...@aol.com>
wrote:

Apples are stored under gas (no, not petrol), so that they're also
available "fresh" when they're not in season.

[Hank Rogers]

Popeye, what does Rip Van Winkle plant in his orchard?

I bet it's almost as good as yoose.

[Hank Rogers]

Popeye does not allow that crap way up yonder in the catskills.
Just ask Rip Van Winkle.

[Dave Smith]

On 2022-03-18 2:32 p.m., Sheldon Martin wrote:
> On Fri, 18 Mar 2022 songbird wrote:

> No orchard keeps apples for more than a week before they become cider
> or sauce.

Bullshit. There are a number of apple orchards around here and the
bigger operations have their own cold storage. They sell their own
apples from harvest right on through winter. I used to work with a guy
who had a good sized apple orchard and had his own cold storage. The
apples that fell to the ground around harvest time were what was used
for cider.

[Michael Trew]

On 3/18/2022 17:30, Dave Smith wrote:
> On 2022-03-18 2:32 p.m., Sheldon Martin wrote:
>
>> No orchard keeps apples for more than a week before they become cider
>> or sauce.
>

> There are a number of apple orchards around here and the
> bigger operations have their own cold storage. They sell their own
> apples from harvest right on through winter.

Yes, that's what I and Songbird were mentioning. I'm not sure how else
we'd get apples out of season; apple trees in a green house would be
very inconvenient.

[Geoff Rove]

I'd still like to find Organic Macs.

[Sheldon Martin]

The apples still on the trees ripen constantly. Picked apples are
used or they deteriorate rapidly. Most harvested apples are
dehydrated or they'd rot. Very few apples go into cold storage, and
only for a very short time, costs more for refrigeration. The
majority of apples are used for apple juice.

[Brazza]

On Sat, 19 Mar 2022 18:23:39 -0400, Sheldon Martin <penm...@aol.com>
wrote:

Lots of apples are stored for the long term. You talk a lot of
nonsense, as usual. Another day in RFC :)

[Hank Rogers]

Exactly Popeye. I have several apple trees. Once I picked a few and
set 2 in the window, and put 2 in the fridge. Very next morning,
when I looked, ALL them were rotted so bad that only a small patch
of dust remained where the apples had been.

Apples disintegrate within 24 hours after picking. Yoose right bout
dat sailor!

[Michael Trew]

OK, my question is, where do the apples come from in the grocery store
in February or March? My local grocer still has bags of apples for
sale, as we speak.

[Hank Rogers]

Uh, I guess they are some sort of mystery fake fruit. Maybe wax?

[Mike Duffy]

On Sat, 19 Mar 2022 21:55:28 -0400, Michael Trew wrote:

> OK, my question is, where do the apples come from in the grocery store
> in February or March?

I'm not sure if it's the law here, but all labels detail national
provenance on the package or there is always a sign if loose / bulk.

Here, there is a special symbol for Québec produce and Canadian stuff is
usually marked by province.

This time of year, most fruit is from the southern hemisphere.

[Michael Trew]

Hm. I wasn't aware that apple trees were common down there. I figured
the heat of the hotter months would do them in.

[Cindy Hamilton]

Michael, the Southern Hemisphere goes all the way down to the South
Pole. It has pretty much every kind of climate that the Northern
Hemisphere has.

Chile, for example, exports 2.6 million tons of fruit each year.

It goes up to a fair altitude, as well. The higher you get, the colder
it is.

--
Cindy Hamilton

[GM]

As Cindy indicates below, many climate zones in the Southern hemisphere...

It's common to see blueberries, etc., from Chile, kiwi from New Zealand in stores here...

And in the Northern hemisphere, much hothouse veg is exported by Ontario, I see it here
all the time, seedless cukes especially, just got several in my Amazon Fresh order just now:

https://www.farmfoodcareon.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/Fact-Sheet-GreenhouseVeg-2016.pdf

"Greenhouses in Canada provide vegetable growers with a longer growing season (in many cases
year round), and give Canadians the chance to buy domestic produce for a greater portion of
the year. The industry is growing, and greenhouse farms come in all sizes. The vegetables grown
are both sold domestically and exported.

Tomatoes represent 36.7% of all production.
• Peppers represent 35% of all production.
• Cucumbers represent 38.3% of all production.
• More than 70% of Ontario greenhouse produce is exported to
the U.S..."

And:

https://www.ogvg.com/

"Ontario Greenhouse Vegetable Growers (OGVG) is a not-for-profit organization, formed in 1967, representing approximately 220 members who grow greenhouse tomatoes, cucumbers and peppers on over 3000 acres in Ontario, Canada. Our growers span from Windsor to Niagara and as far north as Ottawa..."

[Sheldon Martin]

On Sun, 20 Mar 2022 Michael Trew wrote:
>On 3/20/2022 Mike Duffy wrote:

>> On Sat, 19 Mar 2022 Michael Trew wrote:
>>
>>> OK, my question is, where do the apples come from in the grocery store
>>> in February or March?
>>
>> I'm not sure if it's the law here, but all labels detail national
>> provenance on the package or there is always a sign if loose / bulk.
>>
>> Here, there is a special symbol for Québec produce and Canadian stuff is
>> usually marked by province.
>>
>> This time of year, most fruit is from the southern hemisphere.
>
>Hm. I wasn't aware that apple trees were common down there. I figured
>the heat of the hotter months would do them in.

The southern hemisphere has pretty much the same climate as the
northern hemiphere only the timing is reversed.
The only way to be sure of organic produce is to grow your own.
Apple trees are fairly easy to grow... depending on the space you have
plant dwarf of semi dwarf. Dwarf apple trees will yeild maybe 20
pounds of fruit and very easy to prune and havest. Semi dwarf will
yield about 50 pounds of apples and still easy to care for. Standard
apple trees are a lot more difficult to care for and to harvest. We
have two semi-dwarf apple trees, still a lot of labor to prune and to
harvest but the apples are excellent. I suppose they can be called
organic as we use no chem-ferts. However sometimes fruit trees
require spraying as they can become infected with black knot disease,
etc.... the various plant diseases are in the soil, we can't grow plum
trees here... nothing to be done about it. That's why some fruit is
expensive, it needs to be shipped from elsewhere. I was very
disappointed that greengage plums can't be grown here.

[Brazza]

God have mercy...

[Brazza]

Oh and Michael, the planet is round, not flat.

[Brazza]

On Sun, 20 Mar 2022 13:30:44 -0400, Sheldon Martin <penm...@aol.com>
wrote:

>On Sun, 20 Mar 2022 Michael Trew wrote:
>>
>>Hm. I wasn't aware that apple trees were common down there. I figured
>>the heat of the hotter months would do them in.
>
>The southern hemisphere has pretty much the same climate as the
>northern hemiphere only the timing is reversed.

Sheldon, if you're going to say things that are correct, everybody's
going to get confused!

[Ed Pawlowski]

If it was round, people would fall off the sides and bottom. Unhealthy
to stand upside down all the time too. I've tried putting things on a
ball. Doesn't work.

[itsjoan...@webtv.net]

He's been studying geography with Gary.

[Brazza]

But if it was flat, cats would have pushed everything off by now.

[Brazza]

LOL, Michael thinks that the further south you go, the hotter it gets,
until you're in Antarctica and that's hot like hell!

[Gary]

I'm still laughing about that trivia game show where several adults
thought that the South Pole was located in central Australia.

[Brazza]

lol

[Michael Trew]

On 3/20/2022 12:05, Cindy Hamilton wrote:
> On 2022-03-20, Michael Trew<michae...@att.net> wrote:
>> On 3/20/2022 0:30, Mike Duffy wrote:
>>> On Sat, 19 Mar 2022 21:55:28 -0400, Michael Trew wrote:
>>>
>>>> OK, my question is, where do the apples come from in the grocery store
>>>> in February or March?
>>>
>>> I'm not sure if it's the law here, but all labels detail national
>>> provenance on the package or there is always a sign if loose / bulk.
>>>
>>> Here, there is a special symbol for Québec produce and Canadian stuff is
>>> usually marked by province.
>>>
>>> This time of year, most fruit is from the southern hemisphere.
>>
>> Hm. I wasn't aware that apple trees were common down there. I figured
>> the heat of the hotter months would do them in.
>
> Michael, the Southern Hemisphere goes all the way down to the South
> Pole. It has pretty much every kind of climate that the Northern
> Hemisphere has.

Well yes, of course. I suppose I wasn't considering that their seasons
aren't in alignment with ours. I just assumed that apples were all
local-ish, since this is a good climate for apple trees.

[Michael Trew]

On 3/20/2022 13:30, Sheldon Martin wrote:
> On Sun, 20 Mar 2022 Michael Trew wrote:
>>
>> Hm. I wasn't aware that apple trees were common down there. I figured
>> the heat of the hotter months would do them in.
>
> The southern hemisphere has pretty much the same climate as the
> northern hemiphere only the timing is reversed.

Thanks, I didn't consider that.

> The only way to be sure of organic produce is to grow your own.
> Apple trees are fairly easy to grow... depending on the space you have
> plant dwarf of semi dwarf. Dwarf apple trees will yeild maybe 20
> pounds of fruit and very easy to prune and havest. Semi dwarf will
> yield about 50 pounds of apples and still easy to care for. Standard
> apple trees are a lot more difficult to care for and to harvest. We
> have two semi-dwarf apple trees, still a lot of labor to prune and to
> harvest but the apples are excellent.

Many years ago, there was an apple orchard across from my grandmother's
house. One tree produced incredible fruit; everyone swears that the
apples were so big that you could make a pie with one of the apples.
This was probably 60-70+ years ago.

When I was a child, only two of the trees were left. The one that
produced huge apples only had dinky little apples now. She lives on a
steep hill, and we'd roll the apples down the street to see how far
they'd go. I think that tree was the last one; it died a couple of
years ago. Perhaps they would have lived longer, but no one pruned or
kept up with them.

[Dave Smith]

If you know your apples you should have a pretty good idea if apples are
local or imported. Some apples are harvested early in the season and
some are harvested later. Some need to be eaten or processed soon after
harvesting and some will last a while in cold storage. If you are eating
an apple at this time of year and it is a variety that doesn't keep
well, it is from the southern hemisphere. If it is one that is supposed
to keep and it's all mealy, it 's probably a local one.

[Gary]

In the off season of apples, a side of applesauce per day will keep the
doctor away. :)

[Brazza]

On Mon, 21 Mar 2022 09:19:15 -0400, Michael Trew

<michae...@att.net> wrote:

>On 3/20/2022 12:05, Cindy Hamilton wrote:
>> On 2022-03-20, Michael Trew<michae...@att.net> wrote:
>>> On 3/20/2022 0:30, Mike Duffy wrote:
>>>> On Sat, 19 Mar 2022 21:55:28 -0400, Michael Trew wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> OK, my question is, where do the apples come from in the grocery store
>>>>> in February or March?
>>>>
>>>> I'm not sure if it's the law here, but all labels detail national
>>>> provenance on the package or there is always a sign if loose / bulk.
>>>>
>>>> Here, there is a special symbol for Québec produce and Canadian stuff is
>>>> usually marked by province.
>>>>
>>>> This time of year, most fruit is from the southern hemisphere.
>>>
>>> Hm. I wasn't aware that apple trees were common down there. I figured
>>> the heat of the hotter months would do them in.
>>
>> Michael, the Southern Hemisphere goes all the way down to the South
>> Pole. It has pretty much every kind of climate that the Northern
>> Hemisphere has.
>
>Well yes, of course. I suppose I wasn't considering that their seasons
>aren't in alignment with ours. I just assumed that apples were all
>local-ish, since this is a good climate for apple trees.

No backpedaling, please. You assumed that the entire southern
hemisphere doesn't have a good climate for apples because it's too
hot.

[nightingale2550]

McIntosh apples are big sellers in Vermont, and most of the Northeast. I have two Mac apple trees in my front yard that my mom planted in 1965, and they still bear beautifully. I didn't know, but pretty much all hybrid varieties have a little bit of MacIntosh apple strain in them! They might not store as well in the more southerly states, and people aren't seeming to be so fond of the tarter varieties of apples these days, so maybe that's a reason you're not seeing them as much.

--
For full context, visit https://www.homeownershub.com/edible/re-what-happened-to-mcintosh-apples-3192885-.htm