“Looks like an apple. Tastes like a grape.” Call me a dork (Risa certainly did when I brought these home), but that’s the kind of promise that I just can’t resist. So despite the over-packaging, I picked up a pack of Grapples at the supermarket a few days ago. No, these are not some genetic freak of nature; they’re real apples that have been infused with grape flavour through a “patent pending process.”
Not content to keep this discovery to myself, I unleashed these on some unwary testers on Saturday night. The general verdict, aside from shock and horror at such an abomination on the dessert table, was that the Grapples were underwhelming. Instead of tasting like grapes, they taste pretty much like apples. There’s a definite, um, aroma to them, but they smell more like grape Kool-Aid than actual grapes. In other words, they smell completely artificial and only vaguely grapish.
Oh well. The quest for the perfect apple/grape abomination continues. Or not.
I was initially shocked to think that you might be pushing the GE fruit. Sorry to hear the apples were a disappointment.
These apples made me think of Terry’s Chocolate Oranges, which I had always thought were a little bizarre.
I had thought they would be a huge flop, having one good year, at most, with that success due mainly to Christmas gifting. Yet years later, they are as available as ever. (I guess it helps that Nestle owns the thing now)
When I first saw the chocolate oranges, I wondered what would possess someone to think of combining the two, as their *great idea*?
I always pictured the inventor(?) being politely ushered out the door of the Invention Submission Corporation (whom I think take all comers) while being told “Well Mr. Terry, thank you for coming in today, but we’re not sure if your recipe combining chocolate
with orange flavouring quite qualifies as an invention, per se. Thank you for …”
Frustrated, and resisting ejection, Mr. Terry pulls from his briefcase the prototype chocolate orange, and slams it on the table.
He wails “but I invested my life savings”, and smashes the orange with his fist.
Silence comes over the room.
And the rest, as they say… is history.
Or alternatively: upon returning to the basement apartment he had rented following the foreclosure on his home, Mr. Terry removes the prototype Chocolate Orange, so lovingly created over the past 72 months, and carefully places it on the coffee table.
He lights what was to be his victory spliff, and inhales deeply. He ponders what he has been through in recent times, and wonders what the future might hold.
Feeling a little more relaxed now, the basement door suddenly flies open and in drifts his roommate, Jack, dusted in snow.
Seeing the look of dejection on his friend’s face, Jack reaches into his pocket and pulls out a small, flat box.
“Sorry about today, dude” says Jack, taking a pull for himself.
“Want some toffee?”
That’s gold! You really shouldn’t be wasting that in the comments section of my little blog.
I really like the taste of chocolate and orange together, but I’ve never really understood the appeal of Terry’s Chocolate Orange. The violence inherent in eating it just adds to the puzzle for me.
According to Wikipedia, the Chocolate Orange was preceded by Terry’s Chocolate Apple, but the Orange’s popularity led to the Apple’s demise in the ’50s. Who knew?
Love your blog…discovered it today.
BTW, have you tried Pluots? These are an organic, non engineered plum and apricot cross. Really, really good. Indescribable. My new addiction.