Greetings from the East.

Look for Hidden Rose/Airlie's Red Flesh or Pink Pearl. Those are tangy apples that have a PINK flesh; they are native to California and they are true gems, though they also would grow quite well in Oregon or Washington. Other ones to look for would be Lobo (Canadian apple from BC) Idared, Honeycrisp, Sierra Beauty, Winesap, Albemarle/Newtown Pippin, and Gravenstein, though the last one you will find more in Northern California than anywhere else since they were there before the wine grapes. There are still a few trees left, thankfully, and the Gravenstein is a hell of a workhorse: pie, cider, salads, you name it. Back in the 1940s, the US Army used to make massive orders of this thing so it could be canned into applesauce for the troops.

NEVER USE Red Delicious. EVER. It turns to glop in an oven. Bad bad BAAD CHOICE!! It is meant to be eaten out of hand ONLY, and even at that, lately, it fails.

PPS-Roxbury Russet is a variety that is one of the oldest this nation has to offer. I know there are some growers out west, especially near the Sierras. It quite literally is native to Boston Mass, my hometown, since Roxbury is now a neighborhood of Boston (it was not c. 1640, when the seedling, by miracle, sprouted.) She is no beauty, and her skin often is rough, like a pear's. But this is why you DO NOT STICK TO THE SUPERMARKET ONLY. GRAB IT IF YOU FIND IT. This apple is also a workhorse apple and will do nicely in pie, cider, drying into apple rings, it does it and that is why the variety is almost 400 years old.

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