Talk:Red Delicious

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comments

The article says "All Red Delicious apples are direct descendants of this original tree." They are actually clones, being spread by grafting, right? Thue | talk 19:47, 31 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

apple aficionados, hahaha —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.222.39.172 (talk) 20:54, 1 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

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Redirect from "Red apple"

This really should be a disambiguation page. I intend to make it so, barring a solid argument to the contrary. Cheers! bd2412 T 03:03, 12 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Major Supermarket Chains

The mention of "major supermarket chains" in the NYT article is a case of spin. There is no evidence that the major supermarket chains conspired to ruin the red delicious apple, despite the NYT author's attribution of such a belief to certain unnamed "these farmers." There are sufficient quotes in the two referenced articles to establish what really happened: consumers believed (or were led to believe) that the redder apples were better, marketers paid more for redder apples, and farmers started growing mutants which consistently produced more of the redder apples. Jay L09 (talk) 19:31, 22 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

"The delicious apple Hoax"

Once upon a time, an Iowa farmer found a tree in his apple orchard with an unwanted shoot. He kept pruning it back, but it kept returning so he finally let it grow. He considered the apples it produced inferior, but they had an interesting shape. He named the apple Hawkeye. In 1885, Stark Brothers nursery in Ohio bought the propagating rights and introduced the apple onto the market with a big advertising campaign and new name—Delicious. Fisher called the Delicious apple “an apple actor” and thought such an inferior apple could only become popular in a nation where consumers “eat with their eyes” instead of their taste buds and olfactory receptors. Delicious apples are certainly not delicious and best left to sit in their grocery store displays. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 208.40.11.154 (talk) 13:50, 23 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

That's an interesting story (hoax) you tell, 208.40.11.154. So what does this fictitious apple have to do with the visually unattractive "Hawkeye" (Stark Delicious) bought by Stark Nurseries (not Stark Brothers nursery) in Missouri (not Ohio) no sooner than 1893 (not 1885) from a farmer who judged his entire spontaneous seedling tree (not an unwanted shoot on an orchard tree) that grew in an orchard full of apples with a similar interesting shape ("Sheepnose" or "Black Gilliflower") to be superior (not inferior)?^[1] And who is this "Fisher"? For the record, the original Delicious apple is quite delicious. It is hard to find simply because it does tend to be left in grocery store displays whenever accompanied by a modern "eye candy" mutant; no grocer wants to lose money for such a marketing mistake!^[2] (Thank you for putting your spurious story and POV in Talk, not the article itself) —Jay L09 (talk) 06:42, 27 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Why are they called delicious?

I always wondered this. Are they actually significantly more delicious than other varieties of apple? If you could, it would be nice if this information could be added to the article. 65.78.144.196 (talk) 07:17, 23 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

"The Red Delicious originated at an orchard in 1880 as "a round, blushed yellow fruit of surpassing sweetness". Stark Nurseries held a competition in 1892[2] to find an apple to replace the Ben Davis apple. The winner was a red and yellow striped apple sent by Jesse Hiatt, a farmer in Peru, Iowa, who called it "Hawkeye". Stark Nurseries bought the rights from Hiatt, renamed the variety "Stark Delicious", and began propagating it. ---The article. (Jay L09 (talk) 14:22, 24 February 2010 (UTC))[reply]

In short, they are called delicious because they were called delicious: the person(s) at Stark Nurseries who judged the apple contest concluded that this apple was significantly more delicious than the other contestants. In marketing the apple variety, Stark Nurseries wished to suggest that it was "actually significantly more delicious than other varieties of apple." Was it? Is it? This is a matter of opinion, as some like their apples sweet, some tart, some crisp, some tender... Jay L09 (talk) 14:22, 24 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

References

^ http://www.imagesunlimitedpub.com/uploadedfiles/Delicious%20Apples%20and%20Their%20History.pdf
^ "Why the Red Delicious No Longer Is. Decades of Makeovers Alter Apple to Its Core". The Washington Post. August 5, 2005. Retrieved 2009-10-27. Who's to blame for the decline of Red Delicious? Everyone, it seems. Consumers were drawn to the eye candy of brilliantly red apples, so supermarket chains paid more for them. Thus, breeders and nurseries patented and propagated the most rubied mutations, or "sports," that they could find, and growers bought them by the millions, knowing that these thick-skinned wonders also would store for ages.
"Did they do it because it has less flavor? Obviously not," said Eugene M. Kupferman, a post-harvest specialist at Washington State University's tree fruit research center in Wenatchee, Wash. "They did it because it has better legs and they are getting more money for it." {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help); Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help)

Awful Article

Whoever wrote this clearly has an axe to grind with red delicious apples. It's more of a rant about how bad (someone thinks) the apples taste than a dispassionate encyclopedia entry. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.175.77.176 (talk) 04:43, 16 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Maybe, but it is a fact that in the United States today the Red Delicious is treated almost like a centerpiece and not for eating. It looks great on the outside, but is horrible on the inside. This is not the case with true Red Delicious apples, which although not necessarily as popular as Macintosh can be incredibly good tasting. Apteva (talk) 12:15, 22 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Please also correct the first sentence "The Red Delicious is a clone of apple cultigen". All apples are clones. If you plant an apple seed you get a random variant that is not likely to be of any practical use. All varieties of apples were created by finding a variant that was useful and it is forever grafted to retain (clone) the variant. Apteva (talk) 12:08, 22 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I don't really think opinions should go into what the apple is. The first paragraph should describe the apple and maybe a little bit about its history. This is just a scathing article against Red Delicious apples so blatant it almost seems like an agenda. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.222.133.252 (talk) 19:14, 22 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

The article does need to address the flavor/texture issues, though. It is bizarre to have an article about an extremely prominent (and widely disliked) apple where every other reference has an insulting title ("Why the Red Delicious No Longer Is", cited twice; "The Awful Reign of the Red Delicious: How the worst apple took over the United States, and continues to spread"; "'Perfect' Apple Pushed Growers Into Debt"), and even patents criticize it, but where the elephant in the room is otherwise studiously ignored. Nothing about how it became so bad? Or about how the fate of Red Delicious inspired use of trademark/patents for other varieties like SweeTango? Or the declining price and subsequent stress to the Washington apple industry? These are things that this article needs to address, not 'redwashing' the matter to look nice (like a Red Delicious apple, one might say). --Gwern (contribs) 19:55 24 September 2018 (GMT)

We can't put our own opinions in here, but there was an article on taste in USA Today Network.

https://www.palmbeachpost.com/story/lifestyle/2020/09/11/best-apples-your-kitchen/5771207002/

Hope it is still there when you try referencing it! It sounds very neutral but has lots of professional taste opinions.Student7 (talk) 16:53, 4 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Nutrition

Needs nutrition data.

By the 1990s, reliance on the now-unwanted 'Red Delicious' had helped to push Washington state's apple industry "to the edge" of collapse.

This is totally wrong. The two things that nearly destroyed the Washington apple business in the early 90's were the Alar scare from a 6o minutes segment and granting China top level trading privileges in the US. My brother owned an apple orchard at the time. Before China was a first level trade partner, apple orchards could survive a bad year by selling their apples for juice. They would not make any money, but they could pay for the expenses of growing the fruit. After, the market was saturated with cheap juice from China, driving many growers to bankruptcy in a bad year. Grumpyoldgeek (talk) 23:06, 14 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

[1] ttp://www.imagesunlimitedpub.com/uploadedfiles/Delicious%20Apples%20and%20Their%20History.pdf

[2] "Why the Red Delicious No Longer Is. Decades of Makeovers Alter Apple to Its Core". The Washington Post. August 5, 2005. Retrieved 2009-10-27. Who's to blame for the decline of Red Delicious? Everyone, it seems. Consumers were drawn to the eye candy of brilliantly red apples, so supermarket chains paid more for them. Thus, breeders and nurseries patented and propagated the most rubied mutations, or "sports," that they could find, and growers bought them by the millions, knowing that these thick-skinned wonders also would store for ages.
"Did they do it because it has less flavor? Obviously not," said Eugene M. Kupferman, a post-harvest specialist at Washington State University's tree fruit research center in Wenatchee, Wash. "They did it because it has better legs and they are getting more money for it." {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help); Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help)

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