So I’m on the recovering end of yet another cold, and this one was pretty rough. I’m getting really used to the general sensation of cold symptoms and hot weather, a combination that used to feel strange and surreal.
I think part of why I’ve already gotten sick twice is because I haven’t been eating enough fruit. I’ve always had an issue with eating enough fruit. I love fruit, but I tend to forget to eat it. When I remember, I buy a bunch of fruit, and then eat it all in one day and forget to eat more. But there’s also an element of the fruit here being different. It isn’t any worse, in fact some of it is quite uniquely delicious, but I don’t usually crave fruit, I crave something specific. And when I’m craving a fuji or satsuma, which I can’t get here, it doesn’t occur to me to eat a guava or custard apple.
One solution, obviously, is to just remind myself to eat more guava and custard apples, because they’re good and it will make me more healthy. Another solution is apples.
I’m from Washington State, and I’d never really thought about it before but I guess that raised me to have pretty high standards in apples. We take apples pretty seriously. I’ve lost friendships over apple preferences. I think honeycrisp are fine, but when people find out I like fuji better things can get tense. Which is why I keep my favorite apple a closely guarded secret.
When I first got here, the first few apples I had were a couple braeburns and a gala, some classic and pretty solid choices, but I found them almost inedible. They were mushy and bland and nothing like what I expect from apples. So I dismissed the option of eating apples while I was here. But a few days ago, I tried eating a red delicious, and everything changed.
Red delicious is the candy corn of apples, the one that people get mad if your hatred of it isn’t passionate enough. I used to work in a grocery store, and every day I had angry customers say “who buys these?” and “why do they still carry these things?” The answer? Me. I buy them. Here I am, in a public forum, admitting this blasphemy: red delicious are my favorite apple. They always have been. I’m not ashamed.
And you know what? They’ve just gained one more bonus. Because unlike braeburn, or gala, red delicious here taste exactly the same as red delicious in Seattle. The same mushy, mealy, crumbly, spongy sweetness that is consistent no matter where you get them. The same chewy skin.
I ate four in one day, and I can’t wait to buy more. Red delicious are my best friend, and I intend to eat many more in the coming months.
Deal with it.
P.S. I asked about them and supposedly they aren’t red delicious, but some local apple from up north, but I think this remains relevant because they look like red delicious and they taste like red delicious so they may as well be.
