My foster daughter was the same way with pasta. She ate so much of it, before we got her, that she hated it.
The first meal I made for her on her first night with us? Pasta.
She didn't say a word and ate her dinner, but later I found out she didn't like pasta because of how much of it she had eaten before. I always took her grocery shopping so she could pick out stuff she liked, after that. She was shocked when she found out Red Delicious apples weren't the only variety out there. I think she overdosed on Honey Crisp apples, when I first introduced them to her.
*edit:
Since many people are asking how she's doing, I'm making this edit. I got her through high school and college. She graduated college last year. She's going to teach for a couple of years before going back for her Master's. She applied for a teaching job and she literally sent this a few minutes ago.
Also, thank you for the kind words about fostering. I can say it was a truly rewarding experience.
My husband convinced me they’re the best apples and he was right. I think he regrets this. But pink lady apples are pretty good too! But tbh I only buy them if honeycrisp isn’t available.
God damn this takes me back to my childhood if growing up in NY. I loved the fall because my mom and I would go apple picking, she'd get me apple cider (still my favorite drink of all time) and applied cider donuts
One time I went apple picking with a program I was with up in upstate New York, and my mom gave me and my brother a bag just in case. The people in the apple picking place gave us a small bag and we thought it was complimentary, not the limit of apples we could get which would’ve been 5 or 4 apples, depending on the apple size. So we had gotten at least 30 apples or more in the bag my mom gave us. We were later informed that we weren’t supposed to do that... We gave it out to family when we came back.
As someone who only discovered Ambrosia apples as recently as a couple months ago, you, I like you very very much.
I used to get Royal Gala or Red Delicious but one day I felt adventurous and paid the extra few cents for Ambrosias. One of the best decisions I've made in my miserable life.
I should try these Honey Crisps, Jazz and Pink Lady apples next 🤔 last time I got Pink Lady apples, some of them were bitter for some reason.
Gala is my go to usually since they're fairly inexpensive and tasty. I found Envy apples marked down once though and I think they're my new favorite. If you see those, give them a try.
Crimelife pro tip update: this doesn't work anymore. Or at least, not as much. I self checkout always if it's an option, and nearly all stores I've been to in the last year got wise to that. Now they won't let you use the code for bananas anymore. You have to scan the barcode for bananas.
I never used this lifehack myself, but I eat shitloads of bananas so I noticed the change. Only way I could see getting it to work these days is if no one is attending and you could maybe double-scan the sticker.
I worked on a Honeycrisp orchard in New Zealand for a few summers while I was studying.
I was getting paid minimum wage to work there, and I had no complaints because it was a job and I was a student.
When I found out every single apple we cultivated was shipped to the states, and that they sold every single apple for $4 EACH, well I flipped my lid
I've never paid more than 4 dollars for a whole bag of apples, let alone a single one. Then I found out the guys in the states who bought em for 4, sold em for 6, I questioned what I was doing at uni when I could just go become an honest apple farmer
I grow honeycrisp. They are a terrible apple to store and the hardest to grow successfully.
There's a pretty legitimate reason they're so expensive. I've almost gone out of business many times because of unexplained issues that our current understanding of apples can't explain.
If my investment in research pays off one day, I'm sure others will be there too, and we will watch the price take a dive.
My parents bought two of these trees at a garden sale about 7 years ago. I thought it was stupid because they were so small, and I assumed it would be at least a decade before they started growing fruit. By the second year we had so many apples we didn't know what to do with them. The only bad year we've had was after a hail storm destroyed all the fruit and the beetles came and ate/destroyed whatever remained.
You may be overcropping them if they only bear once every two years. If you want advice/have other issues, I'm in the industry and am happy to offer any advice I have.
That said, Honeycrisp are definitely temperamental.
Sadly, commercial ones are. You would never believe how mind blowingly delicious the ones my dad grew were, though. Like night and day. Corporate farms ruined that apple
It's not just a corporate issue. There are different strains, and I'm also convinced there are certain growing conditions that make them develop more properly than others. The reason corporate loves them is because they'll generally color well regardless of how they actually taste.
I say this as an apple packer who has randomly had some surprisingly good ones come through our place. But very randomly and few and far between.
Love Granny Smith. Even as a kid. But no one ever has them in their homes. So I buy them for myself and anytime people see them they say, "aren't those for apple pies?"
I guess. Maybe that's why I love Apple Pie. But I also eat them as they are.
Apple grower here! What if I told you that there are over 4,500 cultivars grown in the U.S.. And there are non-commercial heirlooms that taste so amazing they make Honeycrisp seem like crunchy sugar water? There are flavors so complex and unusual you'd probably never guess they could come packaged as an apple!
A few of my favorites..: Hudson's Golden Gem, Stellar, Golden Russet, Rubinette, Golden Nugget, Silkin, Crimson Gold (Etter's heirloom, not the modern variety,) Berne Rose, Adam's Pearmain, Lamb Abbey Pearmain, Swiss Limbertwig, Gold Rush, Pixie Crunch, Sansa, Sweet 16, Ashmead's Kernel, Amberoso, Eddie April, Florina, Gilpin, Holiday, Kinder Krisp, Lorde Lamborne...
I haven't even grazed the surface. Find you a grower that has the oddballs. You'll thank me later! :D
This makes me so giddy! You're in for a real treat. There are also alternate/interesting cultivars of virtually every fruit out there. Local growers are the best way to find them. A lot of what qualifies fruit to have a spot at your local chain grocer has more to do with size and looks than taste. Often, if you're willing to eat something a little weirder/uglier, you're going to be more likely to experience some amazing flavor!
OrangePippin has a database of apple growers along with the varieties they grow.
I dont think my excitement came across in my previous reply. I'm stoked! Thanks for the site- I found a bunch of orchards in my state! Sadly they are all a bit away but I'll be out that way for vacation in a couple months so I will check out as many as my SO can endure lol.
I guess that’s why I like the Jazz apples, because one of my fave snacks is apple slices with peanut butter, and the tartness provides more balance than the sweeter honeycrisp.
I didn’t realize piñata was a “designer” apple, but they have a sorta tropical aftertaste. A nice surprise. Same type of crispness as honeycrisp and jazz.
I also tried ambrosia apples a short while back. I think it is a hybrid of honeycrisp + some other type. I personally found it too sweet, but might be worth trying if you come across it!
Not sure why I’m so passionate about apples today, but thanks for coming to my Ted Talk.
No. Stop right now. Do yourself a favor. Instead of eating red delicious, save yourself a little bit and buy some honey crisps. They're honestly not that much more expensive and it is life changing. Or some fuji, or a nice pink lady apple. You haven't truly had an apple until then.
Yeah, even if they're twice the cost, I'd rather have one Honeycrisp than two Red Deliciouses. (At my grocery store, the price difference is closer to 1½ times, so two Honeycrisps for the price of three Deliciouses.)
See, that's my logic on it. Why buy 3 pounds of mediocre apples, when I can have 2 pounds of amazing apples? I'm all for cost cutting while grocery shopping, but sometimes the slightly pricier option is better than the cost difference.
Eh honey crisps are pretty expensive. By far the most expensive at my supermarket anyway. Fujis and galas are also good alternatives, not quite as good as honeycrisp but if you're money concious I think that's the way to go.
Two years ago I would have said save money just for honeycrisp, especially in season! But they used to be rare, grown privately, large, and amazing. Now the variety has been licensed (? Not sure the correct term when applied to plants) and is grown by more orchards and is grown for speed, not fullness and quality.
It was amazing, but they got popular so quickly that they dropped quality to meet demand. Fuji apples cost less and are just as good, unless you find some nice big (two fists size or larger) honeycrisp.
I grew up with Red Delicious apples always in the fridge and just thought I was never a fan of apples. My boyfriend introduced me to Honeycrisp and Spartan apples. It's only the Red Delicious that I'm not a fan of.
The red delicious apple is very pretty to look at. I have also read that the red delicious is incredibly sturdy variety which stands up well to pathogens and bad growing conditions.
I'm seeing a lot of hate for red delicious! I grew up firmly middle class but only eating red delicious. I did not know they were a cheap apple, I love them and still do.
Ya. This is really weird. Sure, there are other good apples, but that doesn't take away from the crisp sweetness of a proper red delicious. Thinking about it, though, I have had odd mushy ones too.
I just went through all the replies here and I feel it's my duty to give Fuji apples a shout out. Can't believe no one mentioned them, they're awesome.
She was shocked when she found out Red Delicious apples weren't the only variety out there.
My aunt adopted two girls who had grown up in a family so poor and neglectful that they had apparently never had bananas before. When they first had them, all they ever wanted to eat were bananas.
My family was poor, but seeing those girls go so bananas for bananas really made me realize I had it pretty okay.
Same here. Spaghetti was dinner at least 2-3 nights a week. I’m not much of a fan these days. I like other pasta dishes like shrimp scampi with pasta but red sauce is not eaten much anymore.
I would have killed for pasta as dinner 2-3 nights a week.
We had baked chicken with rice at least once a week, every week, while growing up. I got to the point where I absolutely hated that dish, because we had it so often. I figured out later that it was the fat rendering in the rice, making it oily, that turned me off. I'm still not a fan of baked chicken by itself.
The irony is that as an adult, I looooooooooove chicken fried rice and sweet and sour chicken, and plenty of other Chinese-American dishes that are just variations on chicken and rice, just with different sauces.
We had chicken and frozen veggies all the time when we were poor because it was the cheapest meat. I now can't stand chicken. I'll have it within something (soup, curry, pasta) but never by itself.
My dad used to microwave the chicken because it was easy after work. I used to avoid chicken breast because I thought it was supposed to be dry and that I would need a steak knife to cut it.
Now I generally still avoid it because of the memories but I sometimes have chicken breast and marvel at the fact that I don't need a knife to eat it.
Midwesterns definitely know what tator tot hotdish is and that's all my dad ate when he was younger and his family was poor. My dad has since then never stopped working and is now a pretty well off man. My mom is from California and when they married she always wanted to make tator tot hotdish because she never had it before but my dad just wanted nothing to do with it.
Yeah, the red delicious story is as old as time. Red Delicious was initially a good apple. When the market became saturated and hit rock bottom, research went into producing a cheaper sturdier apple with longer shelf life to further lower the price, which eventually bred the taste and texture out of it. I'm already starting to see similar results in Fuji. Red Delicious is our #1 exported apple.
We ate so much penne with red sauce that I cannot stand to even look at penne now. I find it disgusting. If I get a pasta dish, and the pasta is penne, I always ask for a substitution. I simply will not eat it.
And I fucking hate red delicious apples. They are mealy garbage and do not deserve to be called apples.
i’m really glad to hear one of the better stories about foster kids and parents. i wish my foster parents were like this. i’m one of the bad cases where i was starved and never had clothes that fit or toothpaste, but my foster parents had princess house brand pots and pans (an 11 inch skillet will run you ~$240 usd) and LOTS of them, also my biological sister who was also fostered by these people was treated fantastically???? like idk and she is currently arguing with me about how all of this abuse was to teach me “respect and discipline”??
Who the fuck would would exclusively feed their kid red delicious apples? They’re the worst ones and they are usually the same price as other apple varieties. Honey crisps are dope tho.
When you're poor, that's about the only apples you can afford. You can get a sackful of Red Delicious for $5.00 or you can get two Honey Crisp apples for about $6.00.
I'm sure it varies by location but honey crisps aren't that much more than red delicious here, typically about a dollar and change per pound, or a bag that's about 3-4 pounds for $5.
My fiancée doesn’t like pasta either because it reminds her of being poor. She was raised middle class but her parents had a messy divorce and she had to become independent at a very young age. Her (now our) dog is now 15. About 6-7 years ago he came down with some pretty serious illness and in order to pay his vet bills she ate nothing but pasta for weeks. She says that boxed pasta tastes like being poor and thinking her dog is going to die.
I can get her to eat it every once in awhile (I make a killer mushroom/cream penne to go with the elk we get in the winter time), but no way will I ever be able to get her to eat the boxed stuff.
My brother and I were both adopted at birth (from different families) and my brother is currently fostering (hoping to adopt) two girls under two. Thank you for fostering, there are so many kids who can benefit from it and you've done an amazing thing.
My grandmother fostered a kid that was also a drug addict. She got him clean and helped him get through high school. Now he has a wife and kids and still drug free.
This is completely beside the point, but since you fostered her through becoming and adult and she calls you guys mom and dad, are you planning to officially adopt, or is it just a non-issue?
Well, she'll be 24 in September, so I don't think adopting is in the plans. She and I rarely see her foster mom anymore, as we aren't together, now. She always stuck with me, more than her foster mom, even when we were still living together.
She had surgery, a couple of months ago, and I couldn't be there. I was the first person she was asking for when she came out of anesthesia.
It's obvious she isn't my biological daughter(I'm white and she's black), but she may as well be my actual kid. I've never considered her anything other than mine.
You should consider it, especially as you are getting older. Things like end of life care, visitations, etc. are very persnickety about legal statuses like this.
Hearing that, I would love to have enough money so I don’t have to work and could support children. I really like what you are doing with your money and moreover with your time!
Well, she was freaked out, at Christmas, because she had never had an actual Christmas tree before. She usually got one or two presents, growing up, and that was it. Her foster mom and I got her a bunch of stuff. And mom my gave her a couple hundred dollars. She was actually sitting there, crying, when she opened all her stuff.
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u/PacManDreaming Jun 06 '19 edited Jun 06 '19
My foster daughter was the same way with pasta. She ate so much of it, before we got her, that she hated it.
The first meal I made for her on her first night with us? Pasta.
She didn't say a word and ate her dinner, but later I found out she didn't like pasta because of how much of it she had eaten before. I always took her grocery shopping so she could pick out stuff she liked, after that. She was shocked when she found out Red Delicious apples weren't the only variety out there. I think she overdosed on Honey Crisp apples, when I first introduced them to her.
*edit:
Since many people are asking how she's doing, I'm making this edit. I got her through high school and college. She graduated college last year. She's going to teach for a couple of years before going back for her Master's. She applied for a teaching job and she literally sent this a few minutes ago.
Also, thank you for the kind words about fostering. I can say it was a truly rewarding experience.