I just bought some amazing apples from "Gorzynski Ornery Farm", which was formerly "Gorzynski Organic Farm". They have been farming without synthetics since th

I just bought some amazing apples from "Gorzynski Ornery Farm", which was formerly "Gorzynski Organic Farm". They have been farming without synthetics since the late 70's, and dropped the "organic" because the government definition made it meaningless. https://medium.com/@NYCGreenmarkets/from-organic-to-ornery-72b8c7497e3e https://medium.com/@NYCGreenmarkets/from-organic-to-ornery-7... He had lobbied for years for this very law, and was devastated to see exceptions for chemicals that, in his words, “are so destructive to the environment they shouldn’t even be allowed in conventional agriculture, let alone organic.” (Allowing those 142 chemicals, by the way, is just one of sixty-three issues to which farmers like John so ardently object.) As he saw it, the certification he’d dedicated much of his life to building was now so lax that it was effectively meaningless. It took almost a year to come to grips with, but after twenty years of being certified organic by the state, the Gorzynski family decided to give up the term rather than participate in a certification they could no longer stand by. Try them out if you're in Union Square in NYC! (Saturdays only, through Christmas) ---- edit: Try out Russet apple varieties, e.g. Golden Russet. They are not sold in stores, presumably because of the way they look. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russet_apple https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russet_apple I've been eating them from the markets in SF and NY for a few years without knowing the name. As a mnemonic think "Russet" == rough or rusty, but it tastes good. They are very sweet and tart depending on the season, but really the density / crispness / freshness is what stands out. All things being equal, unknown produce that looks ugly is more likely to taste good. Because produce that both looks ugly and tastes bad will naturally disappear from the market. Produce that looks good and tastes bad can persist for many years (e.g. the monoculture of red delicious apples in the USA a few decades ago).