On the Side | In-season apples, here and there

Eating "fresh, local and seasonal" is, of course, very much in season, though as a catchphrase it is best not examined too closely, or adopted without room for exception.

In this regard, may we discuss my chance encounter with a brash new fruit at the pro cycling race here a week or so ago: It goes by the name of Jazz apple.

The Jazz apple is being grown in New Zealand, where autumn is ending (prime apple-picking time) when summer is dawning hereabouts.

This means that Jazz apples are fresh, here and now, even as stored stocks of last season's U.S. crop are, well, getting long in the tooth.

Jazz is most assuredly not local. But it is one tasty apple. It's a natural cross (no GMO's!) between a tart Braeburn and sweet Royal Gala, and it is abidingly crisp and juicy, reminiscent of Honeycrisp; or maybe even, in texture, Asian pear.

Wedges were being passed out from a booth staffed by a fresh-faced crew not far from the race's requisite hot dog and cheesesteak vendors, near the finish line at on the Kelly Drive side of the Art Museum.

The company marketing the apple, ENZA, is sponsoring the U.S. tour (Philadelphia was the third Pennsylvania stop) of the New Zealand Women's Development Cycling Team.

And why is it doing that? It's auditioning the Jazz, trying to win a slice of the off-season U.S. apple market. (Jazz will be showing up soon in Acme, Giant Foods, Wegmans and Whole Foods.)

Early frost and late freezes make apple seasons high-wire acts. But last year was one of America's best in a while, meaning growers were eager to ship the extra bounty abroad.

About 25 percent of the fresh U.S. crop is exported, including apples from Pennsylvania, the country's fourth-largest grower, though its harvest is a tenth of what the leader, Washington state, produces.

For its part, Washington state almost ruined the apple's good name, breeding a Red Delicious that shipped and showed just fine, but tasted like wet cardboard. The Jazz has learned from that debacle, at least at first bite.

That doesn't address the negative, of course - the issue of the carbon footprint that's left by shipping apples hither and yon.

But neither does it address the positives - the pluses of keeping farmers on the land, and the nutritional bonanza of fresh fruit, especially stacked up next to the cheesesteak.

Nor does it even address the imperatives of national pride: Jazz wants to keep its presence in the supermarkets, so it has contracted with Washington state growers to provide Jazz apples from November through May, after the New Zealand crop finishes up in August.

So it goes, since the Edenic bargain - the more you know, the more conflicted things get. (Pennsylvania varities are local, for instance, but hard to grow organically.)

Consider this, as well. The first shipments of India's sublime Alfonso mangoes began trickling into Philadelphia last month, a triumph of desire (and persistence) over geographical logic.

The next export target for American apples, according to the U.S. Apple Association's Jim Cranny: "There's tremendous potential in India."

Provided, that is, they're not complete sticklers for fresh, local and seasonal.