Mansanas

Sometimes I am overwhelmed by the sheer number of apples, in all colors, available across the Philippines out of the Christmas season. Time was when apples were the Christmas gift of choice, because they were so rare and so expensive. The only apples to be found that time were dark red ones, very aromatic, their fruity scent reaching across the entire expanse of a room. It was a treat that was looked forward to, once a year.

Now we have apples year-round. I still remember the former matinee idol Richard Gomez going around television shows promoting Washington apples, teaching everybody to distinguish the real one from a bogus by counting the five humps at the bottom. Lately we've had large, juicy Fuji apples, and small gala apples sold for a mere trifle. Tart green ones, too. There was one country song about little green apples my daddy used to listen to constantly. Now I know what the country singer was crooning about.

With the abundance, of course, prices are bound to dive, and apples are now much more cheaper than local fruits, in or out of season. Quantity does not make for quality, though. Whereas you now have a lot of choices, a firm, juicy, aromatic apple is hard to come by. Most are cottony dry to the bite, bruised. And no smell. You would think a crate full of apples on display would be overpowering, assaulting your nostrils in their sweet scent, so that I wonder if I have a sinus problem. The apples are mute.

And then I read this article on The New York Times, which says most apple farmers in the United States harvest during the fall, storing the apples somewhere airtight, then release them to the market in trickles, so that the fall harvest would last til the next season.

And I thought the miracle of apples everyday was by a technology which lets apple trees bear fruit in any climate and season.

So now, to be sure maybe I should eat apples in and around the temperate zone's fall.

Which is like going back to my childhood of the rare apples. If only they could be aromatic again.