Ugly Apple: Taste wins over appearance at backyard orchard

September 17, 2007 (WLS) -- One Skokie man has turned his backyard into an apple orchard filled with the good, the red and the ugly.

They may just be the best tasting apples ever crunched on - despite the small suburban backyard. Gene Yale has crammed miniature trees  and their apples- into the limited space to create a mini-orchard bursting with good taste.

"I have 176 different varieties. Each variety grown on its own root stock. There are 176 different trees with 176 different kinds of apples on them," said Gene Yale.

Why?

"I'm nuts," said Yale.

Thirty years ago Yale bought two small trees and his search for the perfect apple began. But by perfect he doesn't mean those supermarket apples that look great but might have been picked months ago.

"What I do is I grow each apple fresh, I eat if fresh the way it was intended to be eaten," said Yale.

There aren't many familiar names in this orchard. The apples are from around the world- and were discovered by Yale and a group called the Midwest Fruit Explorers. They have great flavor, but you might not buy their appearance.

"Probably not. Because my apples are grown for taste not appearance. The best tasting apples in the world are not the prettiest apples," said Yale.

Yale said the problem for apple lovers is they buy according to appearance, not taste. Apparently the apple of our eye doesn't have to be beautiful- because beauty is only apple-skin deep.

"This is probably the ugliest apple grown. It's called a knobbed russet," said Yale.

And, it's one of the sweetest tasting.

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