Chance seedlings

 Lady Alice

Ambrosia

Move over, Honeycrisp.  There's some new kids on the block.  When Honeycrisp was introduced in 1991 by the University of Minnesota, it became immensely popular and set a new apple standard for crispness and juiciness, not to mention high price.  But you've probably noticed the flavor and quality can be really inconsistent.  Nothing like a $2 bad apple to make a person feel ripped off. Plus they turn mushy in the fridge after just a few days, becoming an expensive treat for Spanky and Belle. 

In the search for the perfect apple, Washington State University recently created the Cosmic Crisp, a cross between Honeycrisp and Enterprise.  It is firmer but not too hard to bite, high in sugar and acidity, so it holds flavor and crispness all year, even after weeks in a kitchen. 444 Washington growers entered a lottery,  and the University selected 24 lucky winners to plant Cosmic Crisp.

While we wait, there are other varieties to try, like Ambrosia and Lady Alice, that were not created in a agricultural lab. These are called "chance seedlings," the product of unintentional breeding. In other words, an apple dropped on the ground and a tree grew from one of its seeds.  What an original concept  :-) The real miracle is that someone in the orchard noticed and let it grow, just to see what would happen.

The Ambrosia was discovered on the Mennell family orchard in British Columbia.  The exact parentage is unknown, but it might be a cross between Starking Delicious and Golden Delicious.  The Mennell website says the original Ambrosia mother tree still stands. The thousands of Ambrosia trees growing around the world grew from branch clippings of a single tree.

The Lady Alice was also a happy accident.  This apple was discovered in 1979 as a chance seedling in Gleed, WA, and is a registered trademark of the Rainier Fruit Company.

Apples, of course, are harvested in the fall and cold-stored for the rest of the year.  I read on the Wiki page that Lady Alice is at her best in March, but there was no explanation why.

Anyway, I bought Lady Alice and Ambrosia at QFC this week for $1.50 a pound, which is as cheap as apples ever get here in the Apple State. Both are delicious, with a fine crisp texture, sweet but not cottony. Since I'm mostly off the ice cream and cookies these days, munching on a good apple makes a satisfying dessert while watching TV.  Especially with a bit of that dark chocolate John gave me for Valentine's Day. Which doesn't really count as "candy" in my book.