Try describing the look and taste of a Honeycrisp apple. Even when holding one in your hand, this task isn’t so easy. It’s red, and is, uh, crisp. But many of the thousands of known apple varieties have similar appearances and flavors. Nowadays, genetic testing can allow growers to confirm specific cultivars (in much the same we can learn that a wine grape variety has been mislabeled for decades), but attempting to rediscover “lost” apple varieties that are only preserved through historical records is more akin to detective work… and in the end, you simply hope you got the right suspect.
After two decades of sleuthing, Addie and Jude Schuenemeyer—founders of the Colorado-based Montezuma Orchard Restoration Project—are officially saying “case closed” on one of their apple hunts. Addie says they are now “98 percent sure, give or take 3 percent” that they’ve rediscovered a local variety once thought to have disappeared: the Colorado Orange apple. Read full article in Food & Wine…
By Mike Pomranz | September 21, 2020