Tuesday, May 10, 2011

Lady Alice, Or One Damn Big Apple

I love apples.  If I could, I would eat one everyday with my lunch.  I am a Granny Smith apple girl preferring the tart firmness of that variety to the mushy sweet of the delicious family of apples.  My wonderful friends at Rivendell happened across some enormous apples last weekend and brought one home for me.  The apple was destiny for my lunch this week and today I packed the apple with some cheese and crackers for lunch.  I really only needed the apple.

The lovely apple in queston is called a Lady Alice apple.  I am not sure on apple naming conventions, but I would have called it the Brunhilda the Valkyrie apple because they are so big.   And from one big girl to another I liked it.  This apple would be perfect for that day when you want a self-contained, healthy meal to go.  I did do a little research and discovered that these are fairly new apples.  A farmer, Don Emmons, discovered the apple tree between his red and golden delicious orchards in 1979.  This parentage explains the red/yellow color of the apple's skin. 

I am not a red or golden delicious fan, finding both to be too sweet and lacking in the crispness that I love in an apple.  This apple laughs in the face of wimpy apples, each bite resonated with crunch throughout the lunch room at work.  I got a few sidelong looks from co-workers, I like to think they were jealous because my apple was so large and beautiful, not because it was so amazing loud.  (Note this is not a stealth apple, so don't sneak it in your bag when going to a movie theatre, you will get caught).  The apple was sweet, but not overbearingly sweet.  Oddly enough, I did notice that it was more tart on the yellow parts than the pink parts.
I also liked that it was juicy and overall a very good lunch. 

4 comments:

Kara said...

Ann brought a couple of the Lady Alice ones to our British Tea on Knit Night and, oh, I fell in love with them. I also had one today with my lunch. So yummy. :)

Charade said...

And in the fall, be sure to get a Honey Crisp apple - the bigger, the better. Supply is still somewhat limited, but growers are catching up to the demand.

Tempest ina Pot of Tea said...

I love the Honey Crisp too they are very yummy. The Lady Alice is similiar, but not quite as crisp and bigger.

Vic said...

Apparently this cultivar arose from a shoot arising from the rootstock; it may be completely unrelated to either red or yellow delicious.