An Ode to Cosmic Crisp Apples
Mock me all you want, but this is the hill I will die on.
Disclaimer: I am not affiliated at all with Cosmic Crisp apples, Washington State University, or anything else. I just really love these apples.
I’m originally from Washington State. We’ve got Seattle, 96% of the nation’s hops, Mount St Helens, and apples. We produce 64% of the nation’s apples. (Have I ever grown an apple? No. But I feel proprietary about Washington apples anyway.)
Growing up, we never bought apples. We were surrounded by orchards that we were allowed to glean from, and many of our friends had apple orchards, too. We ate apples with salt and with peanut butter, we had apple pie and apple pancakes, and in the fall we canned applesauce and drank fresh pressed apple cider.
I love apples. But over the years, I’ve become an apple snob. I would only buy Fuji or Gala apples, as they were the most likely to be tart and crispy. I can tell by the feel of an apple whether it’s going to be crisp or not. They weren’t perfect apples, but they were the best I could find. Red delicious are bland and soft. Green and yellow apples look pretty, but that’s usually about it. Pink Lady and Honeycrisp are pretty good, but often inconsistent with flavor and crispness, since they don’t have a long shelf life.
Sometime in 2018, I started hearing about a new apple, called the Cosmic Crisp. This new apple had been in development at Washington State University for almost 20 years. That might sound like a long time, but considering that apple trees take 5–8 years to bear fruit, it’s really not.
The Cosmic Crisp is a hybrid between the Honeycrisp and Enterprise apples; it’s supposed to have the crisp, tart taste of the Honeycrisp, and the long shelf life of the Enterprise. It was also the first apple developed in Washington State that was going to be mass produced. When Washington State University first introduced the apple trees to growers, they planned to provide 300,000 saplings, but were asked for 4 million.
Nearly 10 million Cosmic Crisp apple trees were planted in Washington State by 2019, and they expect 2 million more to be planted each year. Washington State also spent $10.5 million on marketing for the Cosmic Crisp. That was a lot of pressure for an apple.
I read every article that came out. I counted down the days until Cosmic Crisp was supposed to be released at grocery stores, December 2019. I talked about it to my family, friends, and students. They listened politely. I researched endlessly about apples, followed Cosmic Crisp’s ad campaign, and waited.
At the beginning of December, I went and checked my local grocery store. I couldn’t find any. So I tracked down a grocer who seemed as disappointed as I was by their lack of Cosmic Crisps. He said they wouldn’t get a shipment until the next week. I went home disappointed. My husband, who had been teasing me about my obsession for the past few months, tried to be sympathetic.
The next time I went, they were already sold out. Finally, a week or so later, I found some. I bought a couple pounds and brought them home. I felt incredibly nervous. I had been anticipating this for over a year. I knew my expectations were ridiculously high. But they looked great. They felt and smelled great. So I cut one open, and we all had a couple slices. They were everything I had dreamed of. Tart and sweet, perfectly crisp. They were like an extra good Fuji or Gala apple, except every Cosmic Crisp apple was like that.
Then I tried my next test. I sliced up an apple and put them in my kid’s lunch. No soaking in lemon juice or vinegar or anything else, just sliced and in a bag. When she got home, I asked her how the apples were at lunchtime; were they brown? Were they still crisp? She told me that they were still white and they’d tasted exactly the same. She declared that Cosmic Crisp apples were the best apples in the world and that she never wanted us to get any other kind of apples. I agreed.
Even when an apple got lost at the bottom of the fruit bowl and was forgotten for a week or two, it was still crisp and delicious when we cut into it. Our whole family mourned when the Cosmic Crisp apple season was over for the year. (I’d say this was an exaggeration, but 2020 sucked and Cosmic Crisp apples were one of the only bright spots. That and our 3rd kid being born.)
We moved to Oklahoma at the end of 2020, and I waited impatiently for Cosmic Crisp apples to show up in stores here. I knew it would probably take a little longer, since they had to ship them from Washington, and I didn’t know if the pandemic had affected anything. Finally, they arrived and I bought some. They tasted like home.
My husband, who laughed at me for months, is a solid convert. We stayed with his parents last year. They’d bring home apples, he’d try one, make a disappointed face, and ask if they’d tried Cosmic Crisp apples yet. They would listen politely.
This morning, my daughter came out in the middle of her Zoom class to ask if she could borrow an apple; she’d been talking about Cosmic Crisp apples in class, and her teacher had asked if she could show one to the class. My daughter might be the only first grader with a preferred apple, and a top 10 list of favorite breads.
You might think I’m ridiculous and obsessed. And that might be true. But I’m okay with that. And who knows? If you start eating Cosmic Crisp apples, you might get obsessed, too. A world full of Cosmic Crisp apples is a good world.
