> Seems to follow that apple varieties ended up lost to the dustbin of history because they didn't taste very good? There was a long, long period in which resi

> Seems to follow that apple varieties ended up lost to the dustbin of history because they didn't taste very good? There was a long, long period in which resistance to rough handling during shipping and long storage was far more important than taste. To some degree, that's still true, although we're in much better shape with respect to tasty fruit and vegetables than people were even as recently as the 1980s. For decades, just about the only type of tomato you could get in a standard grocery store was the aptly-named "Red Rock" variety. Farmers markets and specialty stores sometimes offered a better selection in rural and large urban areas, but for most of the country it was either Red Rock or grow them yourself.