10 Great Apple Varieties to Perk up Your Fall Eating

A couple of years ago, my husband and I did some taste testing of apples. I went off to the regular grocery store to see what they had, and then I went to my local organic grocery to see what was on offer there. I bought one of each kind, then we sat down and tasted each. The grocery store had mostly eating apples, such as Golden Delicious and Red Delicious and they largely came from the United States, although Ontario is a significant apple growing province. The organic grocery had more types of apples, and more of them were local.

A few things have changed since then. I now have a farmers' market within walking distance of my house that sells a wider variety of apples then either store, and the grocery store manager has figured out that people want local produce. This week there were a number of types of apples from Ontario with hand written signs over them giving information about what part of Ontario they were from, and occasionally naming the actual orchard where they were grown.

As my husband and I made our way over to the farmers' market on Saturday morning, we were trying to figure out how we could manage to do a taste test this time. Unlike grocery stores where you can buy one apple, the farmers generally sell their fruits and vegetables in baskets and they aren't really set up to sell stuff like that one by one. And buying a little basket of each, well, how many apples can two people eat? When we arrived I was thrilled to see that I needn't have worried. There were plenty of sliced apples of each type to try out, and one vendor gave me a whole Cortland apple to try. It was one of those beautiful sunny, crisp October mornings and the apples were cold and juicy, and I had a great time making my way through each display.

One of the things I learned while reading about apples is just how local they really are. Reading about apples in other parts of the country, I was coming across names I had never heard of before. All my life I've been eating Macintosh apples, which happen to be native to Ontario. But I bet there are people in the reading audience who have never had one, and maybe think it is just the name of a computer. There are literally thousands of apple cultivars throughout the world and most of us are familiar with just a handful. It's true that you can go into a grocery store anywhere in North America and get yourself a Red or a Golden Delicious apple, but what about a Grimes Golden from Virginia, a Junaluska or Nickajack from North Carolina, or a Haralson from Minnesota or a Spitzenberg from New York?

Of course, apple cultivars disappear, but new ones come on the scene all the time. My mother was telling me that as a child her favourite was the Snow apple which was small and soft and pink fleshed. It became a parent to the Macintosh, and then more or less fell out of favour and no one grows it any more. Go to your farmers' market and ask about the colourfully named cultivars that are local to you. Some may be new, but some may be heirloom varieties that farmers are trying to bring back.

Keep reading to discover the 10 varieties at my market this past week.