Autumn is here. Summer is wonderful, and I have no complaints when September has Indian Summer weather and the carefree summer vibe can linger on. That said, I do love the cosiness of autumn and find a kind of security in the rhythm of autumn days- the best kind of a back-to-school feeling despite being well past school age, with the added promise of evenings curled around a bottle of red wine and snuggling up against the cold. Part of this romantic ideal of autumn for me is apple season. I eat at least one apple every day throughout the year but admit that a fair proportion of these are imported from the reliable sun of South Africa when apples are out of season over here. Now that it's mid-September, however, there is no excuse for such flagrant disregard of food miles.I stumbled across several different varieties of English apples in the greengrocer's last week and selected one that appealed visually (and didn't yield to a gentle check of firmness..) This was the Worcestershire Pearmain. Moderately sized and red and green-skinned, these are known for their strawberry flavour; see http://www.orangepippin.com/apples/worcester-pearmain for more details.
I only found out about the strawberry in the course of researching this post, but I did taste floral and red fruit elements in this variety of apple. The flesh was relatively crisp- to give an indication of where it falls in terms of red apples I'd say not as crisp as a Braeburn but crisper than your average Pink Lady. It wasn't powdery at all which pleased me. It was moderately juicy and with the tastebuds of faith I'd say I can see why people might describe the flavour as strawberry-like.
It pleased me to find this example of seasonal local produce, or at least produce from this country. I've decided that I've been quite generous with my ratings and maybe need to be a little harsher, so this is getting 6/10.
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