Red Apple

Sweet red apples with a firm bite, sold by the plate of six because that is how most households here buy them — a plate that sits out and gets eaten over a few days.

These are eating apples first. They are sweet enough that children take them without argument, and they hold up sliced into a lunchbox for a few hours before browning. In cooking they soften and lose their shape, so for a pie or a sauce the green apple is the better buy.

Choose apples that are heavy for their size with taut, unbruised skin. A slight wax bloom is natural and can be rinsed off. Give one a gentle press near the stem — any give at all means the flesh underneath has gone soft.

Apples keep for weeks in the fridge and about a week in a bowl. Cold is genuinely better for them, unlike most fruit here.

Keep them away from bananas and ripe mangoes. Apples give off ethylene and so do those, and together they push everything nearby over the edge faster.

Two to three weeks refrigerated.