Generalities
While wandering around looking for the 19 cent bananas at Trader Joe's on 3 Dec 2015, I stumbled onto a pile of large, yellow apples called Opal apples. My apple cost $1.19 and weighed 11.3 ounces, so it cost 10.5 cents per ounce, or $1.68 per pound. For comparison, the price of apples at Whole Foods at 5 Dec 2015 was $1.69 per pound and up; Whole Foods was not selling Opals. The carefully gnawed core, which I discarded without eating, weighed 0.85 ounces, so the net edible weight of of apple was 10.45 ounces, and the net edible weight cost 11.4 cents per ounce, or $1.82 per pound.
Here is what Wikipedia says about this apple.
Opal is the brand name for a variety of apple produced by crossing Golden Delicious with Topaz. Developed by the Institute of Experimental Botany in Prague and FruitSelect in 1999, it is grown by Broetje Orchards in Washington and marketed by the First Fruits company. It is also cultivated in Austria, the Netherlands and France. Opal is a varietal cultivar accepted under UEB 3264/2 by the Community Plant Variety Office of the European Union. [Footnotes and some links omitted.]
The Opal season in the U.S. in November to March. The Opal made its appearance in U.S. markets in 2010, so this is another example of the constant churn in the fruit market. (An example that we have already seen is the Sumo Mandarin tangerine, which was introduced to the U.S. in 2012 (see the e-mail of 20 Feb 2015); it takes unremitting study to stay abreast of the fruit that is available.) The Food Monster considers Opals to be one of the five healthy new foods to eat in 2015. For those desiring more detail on the Opal, it is provided at this site by the Orange Pippin, which is a highly regarded provider of information on apples, cherries, and plums.
(The quotation above mentions the Community Plant Variety Office, which has the job of administering the rights to plant varieties for the European Union. For example, this office will grant property rights in a cultivar if, among other things, it is distinct, uniform, stable, and new. I use a capital letter for "Opal" since it is a registered trademark. This is a glimpse into fruit bureaucracy. We got another glimpse on 2 Nov 2014 when we saw that there are severe restrictions on the the import of guavas into the U.S. on the grounds that they are especially prone to fruit fly infestation. This topic of fruit bureaucracy is too large to be pursued in this e-mail.)
The Opal is celebrated for having the unusual property that it does not brown after being cut. This means that it is especially appropriate for salads, sandwiches, or other applications in which considerable time elapses between cutting and eating.
The Parent Varieties of the Opal
The Golden Delicious apple originated by chance (whether as a mutation or a hybrid is not clear) on a farm in West Virginia, and in 1995 it was designated as the official state fruit of West Virginia. Its genome was sequenced in 2010, and at the time it had the largest genome (57,000 genes) of any known plant; for detail and explanation, see Xu [p. 11 and Table 1, p. 12]. (For another take on the question of which plant has the largest genome, see this site.) Be aware that, as Wikipedia says, despite the similar name, "The Golden Delicious is ... not closely related to the Red Delicious apple." Below are two pictures of a Golden Delicious apple from the Internet.
As for the Topaz apple, Wikipedia says, "Topaz is a cultivar of dessert apple that was developed in Czech republic by the Institute of Experimental Botany for scab resistance. According to Orange Pippin it is 'one of the best modern disease-resistant varieties, with fairly sharp flavour' [Footnotes and some links omitted]." This apple looks much like a standard apple; see the picture below.
Preparing and Tasting
Here are pictures of my Opal Apple.
- The entire apple.
- The apple with slabs cut off of each side.
Now for the taste test. I took a bite from one of the slabs. As for texture, it displayed the crispness desired in an apple. As for taste, it had a mild tartness that was tasty but not as sharp as the Granny Smith apple. It appears that the Opal Apple gets its color and size from the Golden Delicious and its flavor from the Topaz. While this apple is colored like a pear, it tastes like an apple.
The verdict is that I found this a very pleasing apple. In fact, the Opal has shot to the top of the charts and is now my favorite variety of apple. (Full disclosure: I am more of a pear person than an apple person. Perhaps the Opal will change this lifelong predilection.)
Opal Miscellany
Despite their youth, Opals have made it into space. Below is a picture of astronauts having fun with Opals in the weightless environment aboard the International Space Station.
Need a new dessert? Try Opal apple pie tacos (pictured below), You can find the recipe at this site. Or perhaps you would prefer the Opal apple salsa (pictured below), where the recipe can be found at this site. Because Opal apples brown very slowly, you can make these dishes the night before and leave them in the fridge overnight. For 37 other recipes, go to this site.
A Fruit Explorer Experiment
A day after I ate my Opal, it occurred to me that I could test its signature property of not browning after being cut. Therefore, I rooted around in my main garbage bag to find the discarded core. Unfortunately, a few hours earlier I had emptied my living room trash bag into into my main garbage bag, and I couldn't find the core amid the clutter; I only empty the living room bag every couple of months, so it was bad luck that I had just emptied it. Refusing to give up, I spread a newspaper on the kitchen floor and dumped onto it the contents of my main garbage bag. I carefully picked through the pile of refuse; I felt like a crime scene investigator looking for a clue. After a considerable search, I was unable to find the core; this had me wondering if had blundered into the Twilight Zone. Then, on the brink of despair, I located the core wrapped in a Kleenex. I was now ready to conduct an experiment on relative speed of browning for different types of apples. I used a Cortland apple as a control.
Here are pictures that show the progressive browning; the contrasting background is provided by an unopened solicitation from AARP. (I don't have a picture of the fresh Opal core right after I gnawed it since I didn't have the idea for this experiment until the next day.) In each pair of pictures the Opal comes first and the Cortland second.
After one day:
After two days:
After three days:
You can see that the Opal turns a light, golden brown, while the Cortland turns a stomach-turning brown. It is observed that the Opal does turn brown but at a much slower rate than the control apple. Those who say that the Opal does not turn brown exaggerate, though there is a great deal of truth in what they say. The conclusion is that the Opal is the go-to apple when preparing a dish that will leave sliced apple exposed to the air.
Rick
References
Xu, Kenong, "The Apple Genome: A Delicious Promise," New York Fruit Quarterly, Vol. 18, Number 4, Winter 2010. This is available at this site.
Added 12 Dec 2015: I have continued to eat Opals, and the drawback that has emerged is that they are too big to eat comfortably in a single sitting. When I was a kid, Three Musketeers, which was the biggest candy bar, used the slogan, "Big enough to share with a friend." This slogan also applies to the Opal.
Added 12 Dec 2015: I have continued to eat Opals, and the drawback that has emerged is that they are too big to eat comfortably in a single sitting. When I was a kid, Three Musketeers, which was the biggest candy bar, used the slogan, "Big enough to share with a friend." This slogan also applies to the Opal.
