The Honeycrisp Apple

 By Bruce Shawkey

This is hands-down my favorite eating apple. It was developed at the Minnesota Agricultural Experiment Station's Horticultural Research Center at the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities. It was patented in 1988, and released in 1991. It was once slated to be discarded, but rapidly become a prized commercial commodity, as its sweetness, firmness, and tartness make it an ideal apple for eating raw. The apple wasn't bred to grow, store or ship well. It was bred for taste: crisp, with balanced sweetness and acidity. The Honeycrisp also retains its pigment well and has a relatively long shelf life when stored in cool, dry conditions. 

Pepin Heights Orchards delivered the first Honeycrisp apples to grocery stores in 1997. The name Honeycrisp was trademarked by the University of Minnesota. It is now the official state fruit of Minnesota.

I'm not sure the Honeycrisp is the best pie apple. I prefer a tart apple for pies. My grandmother made the best apple pies, using apples from the tree in their yard, which were tart and definitely NOT good for eating raw. They would fall to the ground, and she would pick them up (often we grandkids would pick them up and be paid a quarter a pail full) and she would cut out the bruises and make pies and apple sauce out of them. 

I eventually cut down that tree because the trunk had cleaved in two (we used cement for a while to hold it together), my grandmother no longer cooked, and I got tired of mowing around it. But for years, that tree supplied us with many great pies and sauce. 

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