Granny Smith Apples Suck
In case you were unaware, Granny Smith Apples suck. These are the green apples, also called sour apples. Granny Smith obviously wouldn’t know a good-tasting apple if it fell out of a tree and hit her in the head.
In 1868 she discovered the green variety of apple by chance. A few stories each tell the tale slightly differently. She was testing crab apples for cooking and was dumping the cores in a spot where a new tree grew. Another sticks with the cooking part, but she was tossing the cores out of her window and a tree grew from the discarded core.
What neither story says is why, after trying one of the new apples, she didn’t cut the tree down and burn it for firewood. Ridding the world of these apples before they’re flavor was put into different candies, none of which are good. Green apple jolly rancher, crap. Green apple skittle, garbage (they brought back the original lime). Have you ever had the option of several flavors of candy and went for the green apple over something else? No! There is one candy that is a green apple that is great, Tootsie Caramel Apple Pops. They’re covered in caramel and they are delicious. That’s it, no others are anywhere close to being delicious.
There is an apple hierarchy. Tier 1: Pink Lady and Honeycrisp. Tier 2: everything else. Bottom Tier: Granny Smith. It’s like a lemon had sex with an apple and made something gross. If your best use as a fruit is to be cooked and sweetened to change how you taste, you misunderstood your assignment.
I’m sure Granny Smith was a super sweet lady back in the 1800s, but there is a reason Australia was a British penal colony. Everything there wants to and is supposed to kill you. Look at this list of animals that want to kill you. Turns out they make good wine in Australia because you better be pretty fudged up if you are going to die at the hands of one of these things.
Thank you for coming to my TED Talk.
Pennsylvania Has One of the Best Places for Apple Cider in America
Apple cider season is here. There’s just something special about having apple cider in the fall. You can have it any season, but it just tastes better in the fall. What’s more, if it’s chilly out, it’s extra delicious to have hot apple cider with a dash of cinnamon. Well, we’re lucky, because Pennsylvania has one of the best places for Apple Cider in America.
Before we get to today’s apple cider, let’s look at some of the interesting history of apple cider. According to Washington State University, the very “first recorded references to cider date back to Roman times,” and, “in 55 BCE Julius Caesar found the Celtic Britons fermenting cider from native crabapples. The people of northern Spain were making sidra before the birth of Christ.” That’s so wild to think about.
Moreover, according to SmithsonianMag.com, “Evidence of apple trees growing along the banks to the Nile River can be found dating back to about 1300 B.C., but there’s no evidence that ancient Egyptians ever used them for cider. However, considering how much the Egyptians enjoyed beer (and that they were one of the first cultures to brew it), they did have some notion of the joys of fermenting alcoholic beverages.”
In other words, apple cider dates back a long, long time. In fact, apples are as old as time, really. Remember the Biblical story where Eve at the apple? There you have it. Even though apples are very ancient, the way that we eat them today is not. There are so many different ways to enjoy apples and apple cider in the fall. With that in mind, let’s get into the best apple cider in the U.S. What’s your favorite spot to get local apple cider? Reach out to us on social media and give us your picks.
Pennsylvania Has One of the Best Places for Apple Cider in America
Steve Vassalotti is co-host of “The Matt Cord Show with Steve Vassalotti” weekday mornings 6a-10a on 102.9 WMGK. He has been with the station since 2015. For WMGK he writes about inane nonsense that surrounds our daily lives, sports, food and other various topics. Steve writes about Philadelphia lifestyle content, the Philadelphia Eagles culture and trending topics.
