Red Delicious apples: alluring yet undesirable. They're actually the most produced and arguably the least popular apple in the United States. Bumped around the bottom of lunch bags as schoolchildren rummage for chips or Rice Krispies treats, waiting by the last bruised banana at a roadside gas station, left untouched on hospital trays, the forlorn fruit is the apple nobody wants. Red Delicious apples weren’t always horrible. In the 1940s, the Red Delicious apple was the best-selling apple in the country, but that wouldn’t last. Before long, farmers began to modify the fruit, placing beauty over taste. They were modified to have a much thicker skin in order to hide bruises and dents. By prioritizing aesthetics, apple growers slowly destroyed the Red Delicious apple’s deliciousness — they literally bred the flavor out of it. In 2018, Gala apples took the lead, marking the first time in more than 50 years that any apple’s sales surpassed those of Red Delicious. Apple growers have slowly been ripping out their Red Delicious trees in favor of Gala, Fuji and Honeycrisp. These days, Red Delicious can still be found in the produce section of grocery stores, but that’s where most of them stay.
