minoanmiss | Arkansas Black Apples

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Arkansas Black apples aren’t meant to be eaten straight off the tree. In fact, the best thing you can do to one is put it in the refrigerator and forget about it until next season. Patient pickers are rewarded with a sweet, firm fruit that offers notes of cherry, cinnamon, vanilla, and coriander, but only after having aged it in cold storage for a few months.

This description reminds me of quinces, and makes me want to try it.

Current Mood: curious

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

From:

cmcmck

It's like the Bramley apple here- they are pure cookers.

And my own favourite, the Egremont russet, is well known as a keeper. They used to be stored through the Winter and would wrinkle, but stay sound, sweet and edible.

From:

lemonsharks

I NEED some, just like I need some newtown pippins

From:

sovay

>In fact, the best thing you can do to one is put it in the refrigerator and forget about it until next season.

That is extremely quincelike! I've never heard of this fruit.

From:

amaebi

Stark Brothers are claiming to have a cultivar of this apple for sale and I have been chewing my hands off not to buy it, as I already have more things coming than it's at all easy to plant, what with bindweed and hockey.

From:

pensnest

These are stunning to look at!

From:

stranger

This is the apple you'd want if you lived in a milieu where fruit was packed in hay and kept in the cool cellar to save for the winter. Apple vitamins in February and March (when nothing sprouted until April), would be a lifesaver, for individuals and for communities that needed farmers to do heavy-duty planting on the late-winter rations.

From:

princessofgeeks

OOO i never heard of these; thanks!

From:

brooksmoses

Oh, interesting! Our farmshare had these recently, which I suppose explains why these were the apples they had in January and February.

They look lovely, with a very dark-red skin, but while they were a reasonably good apple I unfortunately didn't find them all that amazing as far as flavor -- a bit bland and not especially crisp. The best way to eat them was to pair each slice with a slice of the overly-tart Granny Smith apples that we also got, and the two halves of the pair balanced each other's shortcomings out nicely.

(Quinces, though, omg delicious.)

From:

anna_wing

Are quinces meant to be kept around? I got mine last year straight off the trees. But I wasn't trying to eat them raw.

From:

minoanmiss

They do keep well for months when wrapped in paper and then plastic wrap -- since I lack a tree, I've kept them that way in the back of my fridge. But they still need to be cooked.

From:

anna_wing

Useful to know, thanks!

From:

magid

I read a book about varieties of apples, which the author sorted into three overall types: eating out of hand, cooking, and storing (which was bemoaned as falling out of favor now that food storage is so different than it was a century ago), so I find it heartening there are storing cultivars out there being written about!