Seasonal Fruit Topics

Proud Pear

Conference and Rocha are the only pears available in all retailers at this time of year. Conference is the nation’s favourite pear, familiar to everyone and available all year round from UK, Holland and Belgium. Rocha, on the other hand, is a bit of an unsung hero: the pride of Portugal, this small round pear …

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Make Do Mango?

I rarely mention Kent mangoes as, most of the time, they are decent but unexciting. I’m looking for flavour and, due to sea-freighting as much as varietal traits, they rarely offer much more than sweetness. For the last month or two, Kent mangoes from Peru have been pretty much the only choice in supermarkets, but …

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Graze of the Week

Just dwelling on my fruit grazing habit and realised that, at the moment, I’m constantly drawn to the plum bowl: they are really impressive as the South African and Chilean seasons enter their latter stages. Sadly, my plum bowl is arranged in little mountains, each a different variety to taste as they soften. The laetitia …

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Orange of the Week

Spanish Navels are wonderful right now and have a lovely acid balance that brings out their best flavour: Lane Late is the main variety. For fantastic fresh juice, buy Spanish Salustiana. These are a ‘blond’ orange and have a high juice content with a mild eating quality: great value. Pigmented ‘blood’ oranges are also still …

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Plum of the Week

Plums are a tricky fruit to get right. At the moment we are entering the last phase of supply from South Africa and Chile, with varieties from mid to late season. This is usually good news for flavour and sweetness: look out for FlavorKing, the most tasty; then African Delight the most common variety in …

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Apple of the Week

Every retailer has a number of favourite and tasty alternative apple varieties to the main choices on sale everywhere. A great one to look out for at the moment is Envy: a New Zealand variety, grown in UK and offering a lovely crisp texture and balanced flavour (in M&S, Sainsbury’s & Waitrose). Other retailer favourites …

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Berries of the Week

Blueberries: The cross-over between the Chilean and Moroccan blueberry seasons is underway. Most stores continue with late-shipped Chilean fruit, but some of this, particularly at the cheaper end of the spectrum, is mixed with unpleasantly soft berries: a pity for this wonderful fruit. Moroccan and Spanish fruit is appearing in the main retailers (seen in …

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