Antique Apples Ranked by Flavor
It’s apple season in Wisconsin. Our local orchard (Appleberry Farm in Cross Plains, Wisconsin) produces the usual suspects, plus an interesting selection of antique or heirloom apples. I’ve made hundreds of pies from Mcintosh apples and hundreds of gallons of apple sauce from Cortlands. This year, I’ve decided to try as many of the older, less common varieties as I have time for. I visited the orchard yesterday to see what’s available so far this season and picked up my first four contestants: Belle de Boskoop, McMahon, Tetovsky and Wealthy. We’ll call these trials “American Apple.” At the end of the season, my three apple tasters and I will pick America’s favorite antique apple. If you’d like a vote, leave us a comment and let us know what you think!
Belle de Boskoop, our favorite in pie
The mysterious McMahon
Tetovsky, our favorite eating apple
Wealthy
Meet the Apples
Belle de Boskoop
Belle de Boskoop was introduced in 1856 in the Netherlands. Green streaked with red, this apple is firm and juicy under the peeler. As an eating apple, it has a very clean and simple apple flavor, with no unusual or unpleasant after taste.
McMahon
I could not find any information about this apple. It’s small and green, with brown splotch like a birthmark or a dollop of paint at the stem. McMahon is not a pretty apple. It began turning brown immediately when cut. The flesh is firm but dry. It lacks the feeling of exploding under the peeler that a juicy apple produces. As an eating apple, it’s not worth a second bite. My expectations were very low for this apple by the time I folded the sugared slices into the pie dough and put it in the oven.
Tetovsky
This pretty apple hails from Russia and dates to the 1800s. Of the four apples, this was our favorite eating apple. It’s very sweet, crisp and juicy, with a subtle extra apple-y flavor that’s difficult to describe — one of those apples you exclaim over on the first bite.
Wealthy
A Minnesota farmer named Peter Gideon is responsible for introducing the Wealthy apple, which is supposedly named for his wife. (Her name was “Wealthy?) Selected in 1868, this apple became the first commercial apple to be grown in Minnesota. Both Haralson and Honeygold apples owe a part of their parentage to Wealthy. As an eating apple, this was our second favorite of the four. It has all of the good eating apple qualities: crisp, juicy, sweet and at the same time, a little tart.
Results
Our experiments are hardly scientific, but we did treat all four apples as identically as we could. To four sliced apples of each variety, we added 1/3 c. sugar, 2 TBSP. flour, and a pinch of cinnamon. I cut a circle of pie dough for each of the four varieties, plunked some sliced apples on one half of the dough and folded the other half over the top, The pie-lets baked at 375 degrees for about 45 minutes and cooled for a half-hour or so. Then we ate them.
- Belle de Boskoop
- By unanimous vote, this baked up the best. Comments: juicy, tangy, nice after taste.
- McMahon
- Surprisingly, this tallied up as the second favorite baked. Three members of our panel picked it for third place, one for second place. Comments: tarter than Belle de Boskoop, not as juicy. If I baked with this again, I’d add a little bit more sugar.
- Tetovsky
- Tetovsky was our last place finisher. Two tasters put this in last place, one in second and one in third. Baked, the flavor was bland.
- Wealthy
- This was our most controversial contestant. Two of our tasters gave it second place; the other two tasters fourth. One taster described the flavor as lemony; another said it had an earthy flavor. However you describe it, it was definitely not the standard modern apple pie flavor.
Unfortunately, eating these apples was not a transformative experience. I wouldn’t mind baking again with either Belle de Boskoop or McMahon (I’m the one who voted the maligned McMahon into second place), and I might pick up a few Tetovsky’s for snacking. But I wouldn’t go out of my way to find them, as I do for at least one of the apples we will meet later in the season.
