The Wide World of Dirt

Since this is my first crack at this, I figured I’d start out with the most famous (or infamous) fruit that Mother Earth has to offer its subjects: the humble apple.

For those unaware of the fable, the apple is heavily rumored to be the Fruit from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil from the book of Genesis in the Holy Bible.

Supposedly, the first woman on Earth was named Eve, and some stupid snake tricked her into grabbing a fruit from the tree. She then (allegedly) made the mistake of eating said fruit and doomed all of humanity until the end of time.

That’s a lot of hype for one dumb fruit from the orchard of Eden. One little plant subjecting humanity to probable damnation.

Before I get into my opinions on the apple, let’s look at the nutritional facts for one:

They are a great source of fiber and vitamin C while also having antioxidants like vitamin E. These three properties are what keep the doctors away from your home.

While that’s all well and good, the apple is not.

Apple juice is good. Apple sauce is good. Apple pie is fantastic. Yet, the apple alone is terrible.

Unlike many of its contemporaries, the apple is a tough fruit, much like a pear. You gotta give it a good, hearty chomp to really make any headway on the damn thing. It’s like trying to bite into a nice hunk of cardboard.

As if that wasn’t bad enough, you have to keep going at it with the full force of your powers until you get down to the core, your face sticky with the remnants of apple hanging from it.

The optimal way to eat the apple is by cutting it into slices, which makes the process of physically eating it a lot less excruciating on the teeth and jaws. You also run less of a risk of getting that dreaded apple skin stuck in between your teeth. You may also dip the slices into a number of different servings, such as caramel and peanut butter.

Alternatively, you could eat an apple with a knife and fork like NBA Champion Kawhi Leonard. I won’t tell you how to eat on this website.

The apple has a variety of forms it takes that I dislike for different reasons, and since I don’t wanna be here forever (and neither do you), I’ll go over the most popular types:

Granny Smith: sour and never tastes ripe, easily the toughest of apples

Red Delicious: it’s certainly red!

Gala: they’re fine, but I wouldn’t have named a fancy dress party after them

Honeycrisp: tough like the Granny Smith, tastes sweeter than the gala

Fuji: the undisputed champion of the apple world, juicy, typically not tough, sweet, deserves to have a mountain named after it

If all apples were fujis, this ranking would certainly look much different, but alas.

I think my biggest beef with apples is that picking them is a complete crapshoot. You could pick up a couple of apples at your local grocer, and at times, they will last for a couple weeks and be totally fine. Other times, you’ll buy some apples that look exactly the same as the ones you bought last time, and they’ll be rotten in four days. Makes no sense!

The apple is a fine enough fruit if you’re in a bind, but they’re certainly not my first choice at the grocery store. I have no idea why a self-respecting company would name themselves after something so ordinary and average (unless Apple doesn’t respect themselves…)

Overall, apples are mid, but Fujis save them from being ranked even lower.

Grade: B-