While supermarket shelves have seemingly become increasingly scribed in recent decades, consumption has moved ever further away from natural diversity.
Apples, like many other fruits, are a good example of how a changing climate and human activity are not the only enemy of the fruit. Often, almost as much of this is the beauty ideal of consumers and the reluctance to accept a varied, not always perfect-looking fruit.
There was a time when an apple of glossy, symmetrical shape and beautiful dark red color called Red Delicious was the leader of the US apple market, accounting for up to 90% of the country's apple production. 1 The variety was good at exactly what it was created for: the fruit was conspicuous, always of the same appearance, and most importantly, with a hard shell, allowing transportation thousands of kilometers and months of preservation.
What this apple was not and still is not – it is not delicious. Not bred for this. For more than a decade now, Red Delicious has been a joke to Americans:2 appetites do not awaken anyone, and countless descriptions of the apple's taste characteristics can be found on the Internet, from "cardboard box" to "wallpaper glue."
Click on How climate change tastes or the state of the apple country to read the article — Sirp