Autumn Is for Apple

My first year in New York was virtually fruitless. I hardly ate any fruit. At home in Berkeley, our fruit bowl was dependably filled with softball-sized oranges, glowing nectarines, juicy Asian pears, and, on more exciting days, lychees, pomegranates, and starfuit; in New York, all I could find were puny bananas and apples with the taste and texture of packing peanuts. I should mention, however, that my searches didn’t reach beyond the NYU dining halls, which I assume cut costs by accepting shipments of the rest of the city’s reject fruit every few weeks. Eating a piece of cafeteria fruit was such a joyless experience – reaching for the least dusty apple, glancing around to see if you were getting weird looks for removing what was actually part of a month-old counter decoration, biting into the thing and being unable to discern any difference in taste from the soup, bagel, and chocolate cake you had eaten previously – that I rarely put myself through it.

After freshman year I started cooking for myself, and I stocked up on fruits and vegetables weekly at Trader Joe’s, occasionally treating myself to superior produce at Whole Foods. I found the fruit merely adequate; it came nowhere near to producing the transcendent fruit-eating experiences I remembered having in California on a regular basis. Apples and bananas were reliably decent, but it took me three years to eat an orange in New York City. It’s taken me several more years to figure out that those transcendent experiences can be had here, but it takes a little more effort to seek them out, and it really comes down to eating seasonally.

The harvest cycle is immediately apparent at any farmers market. There are always a few sad weeks in early March when the stalls offer nothing but limp carrots and bruised apples; then suddenly the vendors will unload tomatoes in shades of ruby and dark purple, along with mountains of stone fruits and berries. In the moment, at least, the excitement is worth enduring the more unpleasant aspects of the previous season. (Does admitting this make me a real East Coaster?)

I love summer, but fall comes with enough new good things to eat to make up for the dropping temperature. Specifically, apples. Magical things start happening to apples in late September. They go from reliable to remarkable, and they’re available in countless delicious varieties. This fall I’ve been particularly taken by the simple goodness of the apple and the subtle differences between types, and I’ve compiled a short guide to some of the Apples of Our Lives.

Gala: Available year-round at reasonable prices. Not overly sweet, but dense and hardy; excellent for pairing with cheese.

Pink lady: Very juicy but with a good crunch, and extremely sweet. Its sugary taste and flamingo color almost make this variety more candy than apple.

Honeycrisp: A new discovery, and I think I might have discovered the fruit of the gods. These apples have a beautifully dappled skin and glowing yellow flesh, and the mellow sweetness of honey and melon.

Macoun: You can tell these are going to be tart from the bright green that muscles through their ruddy red streaks. The minute I took a bite of one I decided it tasted like a backyard (in a good way). Definitely best eaten outside.

Mutzu: These are a muted pale green, much prettier than electric Granny Smiths. This softness is reflected in their flavor as well: sweet but slightly lemony and herbal (although this might have been the result of sitting in a bag with a bunch of sage for several hours).