"An apple that has done its duty"

When you live in Washington state, you are required to take apples a little more seriously than you might in other locations.

Let's admit right off that apples are most people's least favorite fruit: kind of messy, a little laborious, somewhat unrewarding. Favored fruits tend to be more lunch-friendly and portion sized: your cherries, your grapes. When the average person eats an apple, he or she mostly feels that the main net benefit was erasing a few cigarettes or a large bag of fries, because as everyone knows, apples have health cache.

Here in Washington state, it is not patriotic to dismiss this warhorse crop as merely a Ctrl+Z for your otherwise unsavory dietary choices. We here in Washington are required to like apples. We are required to interact with them in uptown, nonstandard ways, like putting them on our salads. We are required to have opinions on apple varieties. What, you thought there were only two kinds of apples, that gross red one with the skin like a cheap leather wallet, and the sour green one that goes in pies? Think again. I suggest you spend some time educating yourself on this topic if you ever plan on residing in the Northwest. If you are at a loss, just tell people that you love Honeycrisp apples. They are the Arcade Fire of apple varieties this season, and you will be rewarded with knowing nods.

The entire point of this pre-apple-amble was to set the stage for me to link to an article about the fall of the Red Delicious. All my life, I have wondered why this staple lunchbox companion is in fact, mushy and tough-skinned. I would venture to accuse this ubiquitous, lobed menace of turning many a youngster against apples for life.

Now I know why it sucks so much. For the love of god, people, eat fujis instead.