There are many different physalis. Some are dreadful for fresh eating, including many of the varieties that are frequently sold by seed companies. In terms of flavor physalis peruviana has nothing in common with tomatillos. It’s not only much sweeter but has much more, and better, flavor. It is a fantastic fruit that is eaten fresh throughout South America and sold almost everywhere in Europe and the Middle East.
1 Like
Interesting. If all I’d ever eaten was stale Red Delicious apples I wouldn’t think apples were very good either.
1 Like
To jujubemulberry:
Ribes gooseberries, ripe of dessert cultivars are a delicious fruit. However I have never bought one that was worth eating; I think you mostly have to grow your own. They are similar to hardy kiwi in flavour. I have found good commercial supermarket fruit of these (I think kolomikta) but it is not a sure thing.
Growing up most of the stores only had yellow and red delicious apples. These apples were good but not great tasting to me. Later in life we visited u-pick apple orchards which expanded my taste views of other varieties. My thoughts about what a really good apple could taste like exploded when the Honeycrisp hit our supermarkets at price levels never seen before. My first impression was that HC was the best apple I had tasted (I still had not tasted several other varieties). Now I don’t have the same taste for the HC apple as before. I suspect there are several reasons for the decline. I think a rush to exploit the high prices has resulted in lower quality fruit in the stores. Last summer I bought some big beautiful locally grown HC apples and they taste more like a good yellow delicious than HC. I’m not sure why I don’t still hold my high esteem for this apple but I believe my lowering opinion is mostly due to growing conditions. My new loves are actually some older varieties that I have just recently been exposed to such as Pink Lady, Arkansas Black, Gold Rush (got two from my tree last year), and Jonagold. In my case I think I would have liked the same apples at any age but I was not exposed to them before recently. After saying all this my taste for leaf type greens such as turnip greens, mustard have gone from undesirable to some of my favorites.
5 Likes
Good topic, Alan!
My experience is similar to Auburn’s and many of yours. My kids like sweet bland stuff. How often do you hear kids say, “That’s too sweet?” I prefer American persimmons because of their more complex flavor. I eat a lot more bitter, sour, tannic, astringent, and pungent foods now. I"m in my 50’s.
I think there is a biological basis to this. The above mentioned flavors are part of India’s traditional Ayurvedic system for keeping us in balance. Adults need more antioxidants to ward off cancer. Almost everyone over 40 has cancer in their body. It won’t show up for medical diagnosis for the first 10-15 years while it is growing bigger. Eating antioxidants and fresh produce can make it smaller so it never gets big enough to kill us. This is the option I like best. I think kids eat sweet bland stuff because they need to get bigger.
There is also a genetic component. Some people, like my wife and another orchardist I know on this list, can’t handle bitter foods at all. The gene leads one away from addictive attractions, though, so there is a tradeoff. There is a great book on this topic I read a few years ago. I can’t remember the title now. Certain ethnic groups tend to have or not have this gene and the attendant addictive tendencies.
I find that if I need to eat healthy but very bitter foods, I can ferment them in my sauerkraut and then the flavor is more balanced between sour and bitter and I can eat them.
John S
PDX OR
1 Like
Interesting theories here. My observations lead me in a little different direction. I’ve noticed that people from tropical climates tend to prefer lower acid fruit and sweeter pastries and cookies. I’m guessing this is because the fruit they were brought up on- that is tropical fruit, tends to be low acid. Of course this doesn’t really explain why southerners like to sweeten up BBQ, iced tea and lemonade to the point of making me nauseous. Or maybe it does, because melons are really the easiest of fruits to grow in the south.
1 Like
Wanting to eat apples all started with wanting to learn how to graft. I did a side job for the guy who does flooring on the houses we build. He then gave me a side job with his brother. He was telling me how his brother takes fruitwood from one tree and adds it to another. He was telling me you could do this with all fruit and mix and match. I tried with little success so I started googling how to do it. I watched the Stephen Hayes you tube videos. He always seems to be getting rid of a less desirable apple and and adding a more preferred variety. That probably is what he is doing but sometimes I think he is addicted to change by grafting, lol! Any way that led me to asking questions on the Garden web forum. I picked the apples I would buy in the store and grafted those to my wild apple trees. This made me want to eat apples so I started buying them ore often too. I guess I’m still at the beginning stages of apple tasting. I had a setback though because two of my wild apple trees died with the extensive limb cutting for grafting and then two of the coldest winters we had in a long time. Now I’m getting more apples to grow and adding more so My tastes will be pretty much growing. It’s been a fun road to my new tastes for apples. I’m still with honey crisp fuji, granny smith and yellow delicious. I have william’s pride which is less desirable to me.
3 Likes
Haha!
I think I may be going in that direction too–this will be my 3rd year grafting, but the first year that I graft over previous years’ grafts…Maybe I’m losing it 
2 Likes