Honeycrisps from my farmers market were typically better than those I purchased from the grocery store, but even those Hudson Valley–grown apples weren’t immune. As recently as September of this year, I had several Honeycrisp apples from a local farm that were terribly mushy and flavorless, making me wonder if they had mistakenly labeled another apple variety—nothing about those apples was like the fruit I had once loved.
I often wonder if the sellers at farmers' markets really grew all the fruits and vegetables that they sell. I suspect that sometimes they're reselling grocery-store produce at a high markup. How would the buyer of an apple ever be able to know?