Late 2019 will see the biggest apple launch of our lifetimes. 22 years in the making, ripening on millions of trees into picture-perfect redness, here comes the WA38, more snazzily known as the Cosmic Crisp. The name was the result of a year of focus groups, taste tests and word associations - a far cry from when apples were named after whichever end of a cat they resembled.

This episode, the latest in the Allusionist Food Season is a collaboration with The Sporkful podcast, where we have released companion episodes about apples: over here on the Allusionist, we find out about the naming of apples; and in the Sporkful episode ‘A New Apple Is Born’ we get into the particulars of how new apples are begotten.

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ADDITIONAL INFORMATION:

The transcript of this episode is at theallusionist.org/transcripts/apples.

YOUR RANDOMLY SELECTED WORD FROM THE DICTIONARY:

muricate