granny smith

🏅 #2 RANKED SOUR APPLE

There was a time, not so very long ago, when apples came in two varieties: “Red” and “Green.” Generally, “Red” apples corresponded to the now contemptible Red Delicious and “Green” apples referred to the famed Granny Smith. For decades, children in school cafeterias across the world sang the praises of the mouth-puckering alternative to the “Teacher’s Pet” Red Delicious. This was an apple for the cool kids, it inspired its own candy flavor, and showed how truly original its eaters were. 

How sad it is that so many unfortunate souls still cling to the stray bits of personality they gleaned from proudly declaring themselves a Granny Smith fan when they were but mere tots. It is the dawn of a new age in Appleandia and Granny Smith (an actual British ex-pat who lived in Australia) is long dead. It is time to bury her apple along with her. Admittedly, this is a superb baking apple perhaps the best, but as for munching, the Granny Smith’s densely packed flesh and insurmountable skin create a most unpleasant eating experience.

Here are the straight facts: the Granny Smith’s tough flesh and skin will quite literally make your gums bleed, it was borne from the trash of Granny Smith’s French crab apples, and science has determined that this is the most undigestible apple in the world (which, to be fair, is actually good for gut flora). To all the Granny Smith acolytes: it is time to grow up. There are now superior sour apples on the market.

BONUS POINTS: +1 Uniqueness, +1 Historical Significance, +1 Baking

Oh how the mighty have fallen! Believe it or not, the coffee grinds in a leather glove known as “The Red Delicious Apple” was once a robust firebrand credited with reinventing the apple from mere cider-fruit into a full-fledged lunch-worthy sidepiece. It even won the Stark Brothers apple contest in 1894. Likely your great-grandma’s favorite apple, this once flavorful Prometheus has been mass-produced into desolation. 

Nowadays, you can find this thick-skinned, flavorless, mealy imposter unwashed in a dirty wicker basket on the floor of a convenience store.  What a sad state of affairs. It’s time to hang them up old man, your time has passed.

BONUS POINTS: +2 Historical Significance