McIntosh (apple)

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This article is about the apple. For other uses, see McIntosh (disambiguation).
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A McIntosh on the tree.
A McIntosh on the tree.

The McIntosh Red (McIntosh, Mac) is an apple cultivar with red and green skin, a tart flavor, and tender white flesh. It becomes ripe in late September. It is traditionally the most popular cultivar in New England, well known for the pink sauce unpeeled McIntoshes make. Many consider it a superior eating apple and well suited for applesauce, cider, and pies. It is extremely common to find this particular cultivar packed in children's lunches across North America owing to its small to medium size and longstanding reputation as a healthy snack.

Every McIntosh apple has a direct lineage to a single tree discovered in 1811 by John McIntosh on his farm in Dundela, a hamlet located in Dundas County in the Canadian province of Ontario, near Morrisburg.

A McIntosh as bought, showing colouring.
A McIntosh as bought, showing colouring.

Offspring of the Mac include the firmer Macoun (a Jersey Black cross), Spartan apple (a Newtown Pippin cross), Cortland, Empire, Jonamac, maybe Paula Red, Jersey Mac, and others.

[edit] Borrowing the name

Jef Raskin, a computer scientist, is credited with naming the Apple Macintosh, a computer system, after the fruit, adopting a very common misspelling often seen in grocery stores. It is possible that this spelling was used to avoid confusion with the high end audio manufacturer McIntosh. Due to the persistence of the Macintosh computer line, the misspelling of the cultivar has only been perpetuated.

[edit] External links

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Apple cultivars