A woman asked me at Green City Market the other day: "Do you have Macouns?"

"No, we don't grow them," I replied.

"Do you have anything like a Macoun?"

Part of me hates this sort of question because — as much as I'd like to be able to answer it — I don't have room in my diet, refrigerator, budget or schedule to eat anything beyond the apples we grow. And I barely remember the apples I ate before I got this job.

I told the woman that I was pretty sure the people at Nichols grew Macouns and pointed her in the right direction. But I still wanted to know the answer to the question "Do you have anything like a Macoun?"

So today I got a Macoun from Nichols. Crisp and delicious.

Macouns are part of the cross that gave rise to the HoneyCrisp. The HoneyCrisp was developed by the University of Minnesota, which holds the patent to it and earns $1.30 for every tree sold. The patent expires this year.

There's a lot of talk about — and a lot of money riding on — which apple will be the "next HoneyCrisp." One apple that's been touted is the Zestar!™, which sounds more like a spacecraft than an apple. I have no idea how the Zestar!™ tastes, whether it's as crunchy as a HoneyCrisp, or whether it can inspire the same fervor.

But I'm a little suspicious of any fruit with its own exclamation point.