Local News
Brian Frange has been pontificating on apples since 2016. He has a few things to say before you hit the orchards.
In 2016, Brian Frange’s favorite fruit was “probably a grape or a mango.” Then one day, at a Whole Foods in New York, he stumbled on a SweeTango apple for the first time. Curious, he tried it.
He was infuriated by how good it was.
“I felt betrayed that apples like the SweeTango could exist and I was being forced to eat trash,” he said. “And that’s when I vowed to spread the word about different varieties of apples.”
What sounds like the beginning of a vengeful saga turned into an act of public service from Frange in the form of Apple Rankings, which started as a blog on Tumblr before becoming a full-fledged website around 2021.
Frange, 36, is from New York and lives in Culver City, California, where he works as a TV writer and a comedian while also creating animations for social media. He developed his own system to rate apples, with those ratings running alongside his wildly opinionated blurbs.
The quality on his F100 rating scale can range from “Criminal Malfeasance” to “The Fabled ‘Immaculate Apple,’” with “Horse Food” and “Barely Worth the Calories” sprinkled in between. Certain factors, like taste, cost, availability and density, might influence a score. More than 100 apples that he has tried are still waiting for rankings.
“I am on a quest to rank as many apples as I humanly can before the day I die, and I hope that when I die, this list of apple rankings can live on and be my legacy,” Frange said. He added, “Yeah, I don’t have children.”
Frange cautions that he is nowhere near the apple expert that some of the growers he has talked to are — “I am the No. 1 preeminent expert at one thing, and that is ranking apples,” he said — but with the weather cooling, and visions of leaves starting to change, he offered seven things to consider before you make a trip to an orchard to go apple picking.
Embrace the seasons
Frange believes that it’s unfair to rank an apple based on trying it once from only one season. Instead, he buys two batches of apples a season apart. “You need the cycles,” he said.
He added, “I think if you don’t embrace the seasons, and then the sands of time kind of just wash over you, and before you know it, 50 years have passed, and you say, what happened?”
Check the apple varieties that the orchards offer
Like looking up a menu at a new restaurant, he suggests looking up the roster of apples available at the orchards you plan to visit. He cautioned that if you’re in New York and the orchard offers mostly Red Delicious, Granny Smith and Rome apples, you should “go to a different orchard.”
“Unless you want to bake,” he added, “then you want to get Granny Smith and Rome.”
He suggested using his website as a resource to cross-reference varieties. You don’t need to trust him, he said, but there’s a “robust and violent” comment section that offers honest feedback.
Russeting isn’t a problem
A New York Times article from 1977 on autumn apples said that the russeting on the fruit, which are brownish patches on the skin, tends to “take away from appearance, but not from quality.”
Frange agrees.
“Usually it’s coming out of the top, where the stem is, and that also usually indicates sweetness,” he said. “I wouldn’t discount an apple just because it has brown russeting on it.”
Pick the one with the most color
This might be an obvious one, he said, but it’s worth noting: More color equals better apple.
“If you’re looking at red apples, apples become more red the more they’re in the sun, and those apples are typically the best apples.”
So about lenticels …
“I’m nervous about lenticels,” he said. “You can quote me on that.”
Frange was talking about his feelings regarding the tiny dots that can be found on an apple. He said that the more lenticels, the sweeter it usually is, but other people might disagree (and they have, judging from the lenticel hate mail he’s received).
Wear sun protection
While the heat has subsided, the sun’s ultraviolet rays can still be harmful during the day without sun protection. Apple orchards are filled with trees, he said, but there’s often no shade. “Apple orchards are in the spots they are in because they get a lot of sun,” he said.
Take only what you need
While apple picking is a fun event for families, couples and just about anyone else, Frange cautioned that you shouldn’t overpick trees just for the sake of picking more apples and should instead focus on finding perfect ones you will enjoy.
“There’s nothing worse than going to an apple orchard and there’s no apples left on the trees,” he said.
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.