Probably the apex of the earliest best ‘June Apple’ would be the Perrine Yellow Transparent… aka Granny Smith Lite.
In Kentucky/Ohio and east coast a Lodi may also be called a ‘June Apple’ aka. Improved Yellow Transparent.
I am fairly sure that my local farmers market carrying June Apples are Lodi… as they are from Ohio.
Im pretty sure that the apples that i remember eating as a kid that we called June apples were probably Russian Yellow Transparents.
if never made sauce from Yellow Transparent.
Why is it the best sauce? Do you add sugar? Or keep it “pure”? YT is not very sweet.
i was raised on y. transparent. it was one of the 1st apple trees to be grown in n. Maine and there are lots of them along the fields everywhere up here. they do make a great sauce but if you use them exclusively use a little more sugar than the recipe asks unless you are used to slightly tart applesauce like me. i put some whipped cream on mine or a dollop of van. ice cream. also make a great apple butter. they are ready here in late July.
YT cooks down quickly into a smooth sauce. Definitely needs sugar in my opinion.
yeah, & if you wait a day or two you barely need to cook ‘em!
also a great song, and played on a fruit!
that’s neat!
My source for Liveland Raspberry is dying, but at 50 years old it is only about 15 ft tall. I think that whole area was once garden, which is probably why it did quite well for this area.
There must be at least a dozen distinct “June” apple varieties in the South. Quite a few which can picked in June to cook with. Or harvest in July when they sweeten a bit.
Hi Oscar, I just saw your question. Yellow Transparent apple sauce is very smooth, almost like it was whipped. Don’t add sugar, except maybe a little bit. We always sprinkled cinnamon on it when we ate it. It’s best frozen to keep. You don’t need to peel them. Maybe add a little water so they don’t burn. Cook them to mush after you halve and cut the seeds out. Put them in a big pot, cook them soft, them run them through a sieve to separate the skin. To me it is the best, because I never had any applesauce that comes close to it. When you eat it, if it is too sour, put a little sweetener in it then.
YT is seen more in the Mountains in the South. Parmer, Calvin, Starr and Horse all occupy the Acid/Briskly subacid niche. But take Southern heat better then YT. I’m forgetting an Alabama one. Also Cauley. All also early apples.
how we’ve done them here since i was a kid. a little sugar and cinnamon, topped with a dollop of whipped cream. poor mans dessert. i use a immersion blender to cut up the skins.
There was a Yellow Transparent tree at the home I grew up in, at Auburn AL. I don’t recall exactly when it ripened, but since Mom & Dad called it ‘June apple’, I suspect the season was June. Like every other YT or Lodi I’ve seen, there was about a 15 minute window of opportunity between they were crisp, tangy and tasty, and when they went soft, mealy, and unappealing. I guess ‘in the day’, coming off a long winter with no fresh fruit, they were a welcome respite, but IMO, ‘they ain’t much punkin’. I’m sure when I was a kid, I ate enough of 'em to get ‘the green-apple quick-step’…
Sour June is another “Pucker up” early apple of the south.
We ate YT with salt at the sour stage- yum! Ditto unripe mango with salt.
my wife loves them like that. salts rhubarb too.