Opals. The Apples that Don’t Brown.

This time of year, I seem to have a lot of fruits and vegetables sent to me in what I believe is an effort to get the word out about alternatives to the meat and booze that people have been indulging in over the holidays.

Recently, I received a box of Opals, which are yellow apples that, so the marketing claims, never brown.  

These are very good apples. I’m not even that much of a fan of apples, but I liked the sweet, almost flowery notes of the Opal.

I was most interested, though, in the claim that they won’t go brown.

So I cut an Opal open, then left town and left the apple on the counter for four days. When I came back, the apple had dried out a little around the edges, and the slice had become a little squishy, but damn, it wasn’t the slightest bit brown.

I was curious how this apple came to be.

Turns out, the Opal is a cross between a Topaz and a Golden Delicious.

Like the Red Delicious, the Golden Delicious has always struck me as an oxymoronic name: neither is particularly tasty. In fact, the Red Delicious is probably the least delicious apple of any type of apples anywhere.

The Topaz is an Eastern European cultivar, and I’m guessing that the more complicated flavor of this apple – which some claim has an almost crustacean note – is responsible for the Opal’s more nuanced taste.

What’s most amazing, though, is that the fruit does not, in fact, brown. Although browning seems to be more of a cosmetic issue than anything else, it’s hard to deny that a perfect-looking piece of fruit will look more appealing in your child’s lunch than a brown and gnarly piece.

But why doesn’t it turn brown?

Unlike the Arctic Apple, which also doesn’t turn brown, the Opal is not genetically engineered, if that’s an issue for you.

Packer, a newsletter for the produce industry, The Opal apple variety was developed by traditional breeding techniques in the Czech Republic. The variety was brought to market in 1999. In North America, the variety — with the technical designation of UEB 32642 — is grown exclusively by Broetje Orchards and distributed under the trademarked Opal brand name by First Fruits Marketing in North America.

Opal is a good apple, and it’s sometimes available at Jewel-Osco.