Has the apple itself changed? I don't remember the modern frustration with mealy red delicious apples when I was a kid - I loved them back then. Is modern shipping or farming rougher now?
I'm not sure how old you are, but I'm 33 and remember hating red delicious since elementary school because they were mealy. So by the late 80s, at least, the mealiness had set in.
36 and the same. I specifically remember thinking that apples from the harvest out in the country were mana from god and only available on a farm in autumn. Then one day Braeburn showed up in the supermarket, and since then I have never become visually aware a Red Delicious in the same way that none of us here see banner ads.
I generally don't eat apples at all because I'm not a fan of Red Delicious. Although I have had other apples on occasion, in my mind all apples = not my fruit of choice. Reading this though maybe I need to go buy some varieties and try them out.
The article features expert insight into why this might have happened, in case you missed it:
Noting the 1980s as when it all started to go down hill: "But as genes for beauty were favored over those for taste, the skins grew tough and bitter around mushy, sugar-soaked flesh."
Unfortunately the author (and perhaps others) are confused. This variety is the same, genetically, now as it was 40 years ago.
They're all propagated from cuttings, hence they are genetically identical. Which means the skins are the same as they were before, and the flesh as is bitter (or otherwise) as it was before, etc.
If they weren't, they wouldn't be called the same name, as evinced by many other 'modern' varieties, that are crosses or hybrids of (other) known apple varieties.
> They're all propagated from cuttings, hence they are genetically identical. Which means the skins are the same as they were before, and the flesh as is bitter (or otherwise) as it was before, etc.
No, it actually doesn't mean that. First, genetics aren't the only determinants of those features; environmental factors, growing, shipping, and storage conditions, etc., all play a role.
Second, propagation by cutting doesn't mean they are genetically identical, because mutations still occur and are an important source of variability, and not all of them result in different branding.
AFAIK apple varieties don't change over time, because the same genes are used over and over by grafting the trees instead of growing from seed. This is because seedlings produce wildly different characteristics from their parents.
