Apparently it’s carambola season here on the island, because the kids and I were lured by a hand-painted STARFRUIT sign to a cardboard box (honor system) alongside someone’s driveway: three star fruit for a buck. I’ve never had tree-ripe star fruit before, and it’s (unsurprisingly) much sweeter than what I’ve had from the store. Really yummy :-)
I’ve bought fresh avocados and mangoes here that way, too. Last year a neighbor gave us a coconut off one of his trees, and this year another neighbor has promised us one of his pineapples (which are a gorgeous red variety and are almost ripe–I can’t wait).
It won’t be citrus season till winter, but citrus sadly goes to waste by the truckload here–people have way too many oranges and tangerines and such to eat, and fruit rots underneath the trees.
I hope the next place we live has some wonderful fruit to replace what we can get here. (Oh, and the seafood…man, would I miss that. How many of you have ever eaten pompano? It’s become by far my favorite fish, and I’ve never seen it anywhere but here.)
Do you have some type of local fresh food where you live that you’d hate doing without? I’d love to hear about it so I’ll have hope for wherever we live this time next year. :-)
Western Oregon, fresh berries. Strawberries, raspberries, blueberries, and blackberries, mostly. Local, cheap. We buy them by the flat, eat them by the handful, and buy ourselves another flat. Mm.
Except for the blackberries. They grow wild in great thickets by the roadsides. No need to buy those at all.
Sweetcorn. Best sweetcorn in the entire world – Geauga county, Ohio. We can drive two miles up the road to a farm, where a cart sits in the front yard piled high with a fraction of the morning’s harvest. They also have an honor-system jar, four dollars for a dozen. It takes about five minutes to prepare, and it tastes amazing. It’s spoiled me forever against ever buying supermarket corn, which will be a problem when I stop living in rural Ohio.
Sanguinity: I’ve lived in Washington state and enjoyed the fresh berries there. They are utterly amazing.
Eliza: I’ve lived in Ohio and had the sweetcorn there, too. You never do get used to having to do without it when you live somewhere else. :-)
Hmmmm
Here in Vermont we have cows. I guess the local food that special is Maple Syrup, and the springtime ritual of “sugar on ice” which is shaved ice and maple syrup.
I am almost positive that when I leave here, there will be nothing I miss.
In Puerto Rico, we have mangoes, tamarinds, quenepas (don’t know the Engllish word for them, but I think Cubans call them mamoncillos), acerolas (hawthorn berries), grosellas (gooseberries), guavas, bananas, baby bananas (a kind of miniature banana), apple bananas (bananas that actually taste like apples), and fresas (a form of wild raspberry), among other things.
oranges rotting under trees isn’t all bad, apparently. my friend john lazily lets his oranges rot, and he says they taste much better now than when he first moved into his house. :-)
Apples, going out picking them off the tree and eating them on the way home. Fresh pressed cider from apples picked that morning. (We buy three gallons and my husband and the kids drink one on the way home from the orchard).
Early apple season starts next week and I can’t wait, I make my own apple butter and sauce, and put up several batches of apple slices in sauce and we eat them all winter. I also tried drying apples for the first time last year and we used the last ones last week.
Frank: I haven’t had freshly made maple syrup, but I’m supposing it doesn’t taste too different once it’s bottled.
Jim: We have those baby bananas here, too. I love them. :-)
Jonvon: They apparently can store pretty well if they just hang on the tree.
Monder: We had a few apple trees on a peach farm I lived on in Texas, but I bet the apples from a cold state are much better. (Our peaches were to die for, though. Mmmmm, I miss those.)
i probably wasn’t real clear… hehe, em, what i meant was the ones that eventually fall end up as fertilizer, and then the new oranges that grow the next season taste a lot better.
if only i had an editor for blog comments… :-)
Here in Northeastern Pnnsylvania we grow some of the best tomatoes you will ever taste. Some believe this is due to the large amounts of acid rain we get courtesy of our dear friends in the Midwest.
We are at the peak of the tomato season right now, and the Pittston Tomato Festival is in full swing. When I get home today I will be making a pizza and some spaghetti sauce from tomatoes that are currently on the vines in my garden. I couldn’t imagine being forced to settle for bland supermarket tomatoes.
Jonvon: Ah, I see. :-)
Harold: There is nothing like vine-ripe tomatoes. It must be wonderful to have them in abundance.