Lessen for buying Pink Lady apples

Two Pink Lady apples bought at Woolworths mid-week. Notice how they are completely infected with a brown fungus, species not known to me or my family

Mummy and I have liked the fresh, crunchy flavour of Pink Lady apples for over a decade now, so much so that apart from occasional purchases by myself of Granny Smiths we rarely buy any other type.

This week, as we prepare for a lengthy holiday in Singapore, Japan, and with a not-yet-acquired visa Vietnam, I had a rude shock when I brought a few Pink Ladies to tide ourselves over in our last few days in Australia. I bought four Pink Ladies, and found the first to be so brown – infected with a fungus of a species I have not researched personally – that I dared not eat it. When I was in the local Woolworths buying the apples, they felt quite OK, and in the past buying fruit I have always tended to rely on feel since bad fruit is more often than not bad only inside.

However, when we discovered another completely infected and inedible apple on this last day in Australia, and when I first noticed the earlier bad one, my mother said that bad Pink Ladies can in fact be detected by means of their yellow colour in the core skin. One can faintly see a yellow colour in the core of the opened apple, and the one uninfected Pink Lady was green or red all over.

This really should be a lesson for all shoppers, as well as for Woolworths itself!