North American Fruit Explorers mailing list at ibiblio

[Spidra Webster <spidra@speakeasy.net>]

On Jan 22, 2006, at 5:11 PM, Rodney wrote:
> While I agree that  grocery store fruit doesn't have the flavor of 
> fruit
> picked at it's peak, I would prefer it still be tasted every year to
> continually make "the point" rather than letting the data get stale.

It's funny but I needed a reminder and got one yesterday. While it has 
been abundantly clear to me that supermarket strawberries, apples and 
tomatoes are awful, I hadn't thought the citrus was that bad.  I've 
gotten less excited about citrus and winter feels awfully bleak with 
only apples and oranges commonly available in stores (for low cost, 
that is).  I'm not a fan of red apples and have only recently 
discovered heirloom apples (and where my beloved Newton Pippin apples 
have been hiding all these years).  At the Golden Gate Chapter CRFG 
Scion Exchange yesterday, someone brought Moro blood oranges and 
Washington navel oranges.  The Moros were beautiful looking and tasted 
good.  But the Washington Navels  were out of this world!  I'm a fan of 
tart fruit, but initially these navels were even a bit too tart for me. 
 Then the full taste came through and I went back for more. Again and 
again.  God, they were wonderful.  And it made me realize that 
supermarket citrus has been almost as bad as supermarket apples. I had 
forgotten what real citrus tastes like.


> Are there other fruit tasters out there make a serious attempt to rate
> fruits by taste, appearance, etc.?

I love the Dave Wilson tasting statistics and have referred to them 
quite a bit when trying to select varieties to plant. However, the 
question of "beauty being in the eye of the beholder" comes up. I like 
fruit with high acid in most cases.  It seems like the mainstream likes 
sweet sweet sweet. So when a panel rates a particular cultivar as 
having the best taste, what does that mean?  What is being held up as 
the Platonic ideal of a peach, an apple, an apricot?  I wish the taste 
charts had Brix measures on them.

We had a loquat tasting at a CRFG meeting last year. A number of what 
were brought were seedling loquats so it was hard to pursue them if you 
decided you wanted to graft.  I'm still trying to track down one that a 
member brought.  She hasn't attended any of the subsequent meetings 
I've been at.  But the tasting was a fun idea and I think we should do 
more of them.  But have some qualifications about what particular 
tasters think is the ideal taste for that fruit.


> P.S.  I rarely buy store nectarines because most of the ones I come 
> across
> aren't as tasty to me as peaches. Is that common?

For the last several years I've found that store nectarines are a 
better bet than peaches.  But the last season or so nectarines have 
seemed just as bad.  I hardly got a good peach this summer but I think 
it might be due to the fact that I wasn't getting out to the Farmer's 
Market or gourmet stores enough.  Froghollow Farms' O'Henry peach was 
the best I tasted this summer.


Berkeley, CA

Spidra Webster
http://www.spidra.com