Pink McIntosh?

[Tri2Cook]

I bought some mcintosh apples yesterday and ate a couple of them today. The first one I ate was your standard garden variety early mac: juicy, crisp, a little tart, green undertone blushed with red on the outside, bright white on the inside. I decided to eat another and it was identical except it had a layer of pink flesh about 1/2" thick all around just under the skin. From there in it was the usual white flesh. It was darkest near the skin and faded as it got closer to the center but there was still a clear defined line between the pink and white where they met. I wasn't around a camera (I was in the woods mushroom hunting) so no pic but I'm wondering if this is common (I only buy macs when the early crop arrives. I don't love them once the mature, less crisp and more sweet ones take over so maybe this happens all the time and I just don't see enough of them to know that.) or was there some cross-pollinating going on at the orchard? I've seen pink fleshed apples before but not macs. It would look really cool on a plate sliced into very thin rings.

[Emily_R]

We have a macintosh tree on our property, and this was the first year that I've noticed the same thing you did -- a few of our apples had red flesh just underneath the skin. I don't think this would be a cross-pollenation issue, as the source of the pollen should not have any impact on that piece fruit itself -- the cross-pollenation would be reflected in the seeds of that apple.

[emilyr]

Have you had a particularly cool year there, too? Ours has been extremely mild, and I was wondering if it would affect fruit in ways similar to this. I thought the local peaches were much sweeter than usual, but not as juicy, and my mom speculated that they ripened more slowly because of the temps.

[Tri2Cook]

Actually, yes. It was an unusually cool summer. Never used the A/C the entire summer, not once.