How Do You Like Them Apples?

Growing up, Red Delicious was the apple of my eye. It was the classic, old-school American apple, worth remembering during the 2025 apple season.

As a kid, the only apples I knew were Red Delicious, green apples (which I later learned were Granny Smiths), and yellow apples (Golden Delicious). But no one ever ate green apples because they were too tart, and the yellow ones were just so—yellow. That left me with the Red Delicious, a ruby, oblong orb waxed to a high shine.

When my mother (or more likely, Rena) put an apple in my lunchbox, it was a Red Delicious.

When you brought an apple to the teacher, it was a Red Delicious.

When the evil witch offered Snow White a poisoned apple, it was a Red Delicious.

Lucas Cranach the Elder, Adam, Eve (1533/37)

But when Eve offered Adam an apple, it wasn’t a Red Delicious. A 16th-century painting of the first parents shows Eve with what appears to be a pinkish apple. But I’m sure it would have been a Red Delicious if Lucas Cranach the Elder had been painting in the mid-20th century.

Today, we see the Red Delicious as the most deceptive of apples—pretty to look at but mealy, bland, and unremarkable in taste.

The Red Delicious is still available in supermarkets and Walmart, but it's impossible to find at farmers’ markets or apple orchards. Instead, they offer higher-end and more flavorful varieties. 

Red Delicious

Originating in 1872 and popular until the 1980s, the Red Delicious once made up three-quarters of the apples grown in Washington State. 

But people grew to detest them, and around the time when Reagan was president, Fuji from Japan, along with Braeburn and Gala from New Zealand, entered the United States. (Reagan did not impose prohibitive tariffs on imported apples.) Gala, Fuji, and Honeycrisp became popular among American growers.

Honeycrisp

Today, the most popular apple of the early 2000s, the Honeycrisp, has gone the way of the Red Delicious. The Honeycrisps I find are neither honeyed nor crispy. I liked the sweet, seductive Pink Lady for a while, but it, too, started to lose its zip.

Despite everything, I still consider the Red Delicious the quintessential apple. As a Yankee magazine headline states, “Red Delicious Apples Weren’t Always Horrible.”

When I asked AI about the most iconic apple, it said it was the iPhone. Even a Red Delicious would taste better than an iPhone.

There is no consensus on the best apple of 2025, like there was about the Red Delicious in the mid-twentieth century. We have many options, but no definitive winner.

Truth told, I’m an orange guy. But I’ll hold off on comparing apples to oranges for another day.

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