A couple weeks ago, I wrote about some of the apples Rudi and I brought home with us from Vermont, and tonight we had tasting #2:

Pictured above (with Welsh cheddar this time), you’ll find the last few slices of (clockwise, from the bottom) Knobbed Russet, Northern Spy, Ashmead’s Kernel, Pristine, and Sheepnose.

Knobbed Russets are particularly ugly apples, misshapen and with unpleasantly rough, bumpy skin, but their outward appearance masks an ideal eating apple, simultaneously sweet and tart and delicious. They were my favorite, followed by Ashmead’s Kernel, the other russet.

Northern Spy (the biggest apple we sampled tonight), is a solid, crisp eating apple and probably the most commonly known of the bunch. You’d be hard-pressed to go wrong selecting this one for munching on.

Pristine, a pretty, yellow apple, was also crunchy, but as its name suggests, had a very clean taste. If a single apple could embody the taste of generic apple juice, this would be it. Nice enough, but not especially memorable.

Sheepnose (which originated in Connecticut around 1800 and is also known as Black Gilliflower) had the best name, but was the most disappointing snack, with a mushy, quick-to-breakdown texture. Now, to be fair to the process, these apples have been sitting on my counter for weeks, so it’s clearly not an ideal environment for softer varieties. And it still had a nice taste that Rudi and I agreed would probably work quite well in a cooked dessert.