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Subscribe!Yummy red berries (pt 1)
There are some things that can be grown anytime of the year and taste good, there are some things that can be grown hydroponically and taste good, there are some things that can be imported and taste good.
And, there are some things that can’t.
It’s the middle of the berry season here in England, and I’m loving it. I can go to a supermarket anytime of the year, and pick up something called ‘strawberries’ or ‘raspberries’, but then I put one in my mouth and find that it actually tastes of absolutely nothing!
Why bother? I’d much rather wait for the season and eat the real thing.
This afternoon, we had Tulameen Raspberries and Elsanta strawberries. They are so simply good that you don’t really have to do anything with them at all, a quick wash and just pop one of the juicy little flavourbombs into your mouth.
I served them in individual bowls, sitting on a pool of thick greek yoghurt and with a simple sugar caramel drawn in lines over the top. Where the caramel hits the yoghurt it sinks in and goes all nice and goeey, and where it hits the berries it creates crispy shards across them.
Not only does it taste fantastic, but if you serve it in a dark colour bowl then the contrast between the bowl, the white yoghurt and bright red fruit, and the pretty lines of translucent caramel mean that it is visually stunning as well.
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April 16th, 2011 at 6:27 pm
You’ll find that the “all the year round” raspberries in the supermarket, will have come from Kenya, Chile, Egypt, etc etc.
They’re specially selected strains that look pretty. Because the supermarkets are all about image.
It’s a similar case for strawberry, apple, etc etc. They sell a lot of tasteless crap, that looks wonderful. Hell, even during the season when they also sell raspberry grown locally (Sussex, Hampshire, etc), they still insist that the growers produce pretty, but tasteless varieties.
They always use the same excuse i.e. “it’s what the customer wants”. Whereas, in reality, it’s not so cost effective to provide variety, unless it’s “organic”, then they use the magic “O” word to bung a few more percentage points on the price. The health freaks think that they’re better off paying more…..
April 17th, 2011 at 2:43 pm
The ridiculous thing is that it really does seem to be what lots of customers want, I watched a woman in a vegetable shop the other day spending about five minutes carefully selecting potatoes that didn’t have “an ugly shape”.
As for berries, the smell is the clear giveaway. If you can’t smell them before you even pick up the packet then they probably aren’t worth buying.
Kenya, Egypt, etc. is right, but don’t forget about Holland. A huge amount of the out of season fruit that we get in Europe is grown there under glass and hydroponically.
I don’t understand why we can’t just eat the fruit that is in season, or preserve it when it is and eat it throughout the year. I would never buy a strawberry in december in Europe, because I know that it is going to be a disappointment.