While making an apple and smoked chilli chutney yesterday (based on the one in Jocasta Innes' Country Kitchen p.266 but hotter) I was thinking about the browning of apple flesh when exposed to air. It's easily prevented by adding acid, but the way I was weighing the fruit as I cut it meant that I didn't want to add the vinegar to the pan, and the small windfalls I was using took a while to peel/chop/pick over.
The answers to a previous question "Why prevent apples from turning brown?" suggests that the flavour is affected:
In addition to the brown color they also become mushy and have a bruised flavor — Sobachatina
but I'm cooking them to mush anyway, and there's enough brown sugar in the recipe to change the colour, so would this negate any benefit of dipping the cut apples in acid?
Best Answer
Browning is oxidation. Oxidation has a distasteful affect to the flavor of many fruit where the star flavor profiles are acidic in nature. In apples, the two acids are malic acid and tartaric acid. Oxidation in combination with these two acids gives apples an artificial candy flavor.
Now I realize this isn't an apple example, but it is a good way to really taste what oxidation can do to fruit and fruit flavors. If you can, find some good strawberry wine (yes it does exist), and then try some cheap strawberry wine. Cheap strawberry wine tastes like strawberry candy, while good strawberry wine tastes like the refined version of the fruit. The difference is the amount of care given to avoid oxidation of the fruit and wine at all stages of the process. Strawberry wine is so easily oxidized that you need to fill chambers with nitrogen gas to keep air away from it. Cheap winemakers don't go to the trouble or additional cost since they are selling at a thinner margin.