As part of an effort to revive the short-lived but undeniably sparkly series, Fruit Facts, I’d like to talk about wax coatings on fruit. According to this page, non-nutritive fruit varnishes do have a purpose beyond appearance enhancement, such as:
- inhibiting mold growth
- protecting fruits and vegetables from bruising
- preventing other physical damage and disease.
Each of these items is worthy, but I’m stuck on the “enhance appearance” aspect. I look at my 12-pack of apples from Costco, and those things look exactly.the.same. It’s a tiny bit disturbing. It makes me think, give me some dirty fruit. Where can I get my hands on some. Fruit with a little dust (of the non-pesticide variety), some odd curvatures, and un-uniform coloring. Fruit with character.
Really what I want is to be able to pick apples again like we used to do in the fall up North. Clearly that’s not going to happen, and even if it did, it would only be seasonal. But damn, those things were good. They were all different sizes, matte-not-glossy, good old-fashioned, straight-from-the-tree apples. In the meantime, my Costco apples sure are tasty, and the price is right, but I feel like they’re more than a little homogenized, which makes me sad on behalf of the fruit, and on behalf of all fruit eaters everywhere, who surely feel that uniqueness trumps sameness any day of the week. Lastly, I feel sad knowing my children will likely miss out on the all-important character-building experience of finding a worm in their apple, which obviously would never happen with fruit that’s been coated in shiny wax.
1 comment:
Are there anypick your own apple orchards near you? If you weren't so far from No Ho you could pick a wormy apple from my tree. I personally prefer the ones without worms.
They use that wax on candy too.
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