Lovely new season fruit from the market in Palma de Mallorca: apricots, cherries and locquats (nispero or medlar), all on a bed of silky Granada cherimoya. The combination makes a delicious breakfast – sweet, flavoursome and tangy with the unusual tropical undertones of the cherimoya.
The apricots and cherries will soon be in UK stores, joining the new season raspberries, blueberries and strawberries that are already abundant. Unfortunately, we will rarely see locquats, certainly not in supermarkets, as they bruise very easily. But there is little excuse for cherimoya to be so hard to find: a delicious fruit, they are very occasionally in Asda, but really only in ethnic groceries with any certainty.
Looking around any fruit market in Spain at this time of year is a salutary reminder of just how sterile much of fresh produce retailing has become in the UK. We still have our street markets, but supermarkets are so dominant that many markets only sell rejects or surplus’s, which rather takes the fun and theatre out of the experience.