How do they get away with it?

[tim]

Year after year people pay the earth for Kumquats. And give them as rich presents.

Year after year they are tasteless, pithy, juiceless. Like unripe Mangoes, Avocadoes etc - how do people know what things should taste like?? What disappointment.

I suppose we could make Marmalade with them?

[tim]

[Paulines7]

Hope you enjoyed Christmas day, Tim.   :D

Did you get given many Kumquats?  There are plenty of recipes on the net for kumquat brandy or liqueurs.  It seems a bit of a waste to make marmalade with them.

[tim]

Yes - indeed!

No - just one box. When they're good, they are very, very good. But when they are not they are binworthy!!

[saddad]

When I go round the veg/fruit area in our local Tesc/buries I am always amazed by the amount of clearly not ready/ripe produce on display..  :-\

[1066]

And its not just the unripe fruit that gets me it's the tastelessness of many varieties. I've practically given up buying bananas, pineapples, mangoes......  :'(

[emmy1978]

Don't even bother with supermarket lychees.....

[tim]

So sad that, despite all the travel these days,  most of our people have no idea what things should taste like.

Just sample an Alphonso Mango from a London Asian shop in early Spring & wonder!!

[1066]

is there an emoticon for drooling.......

I think travel did it for me with tropical fruit, once I'd tasted what they were like on holiday, then everything else disappoints. Memo to self no more holidays

[Melbourne12]

....

I suppose we could make Marmalade with them?

You can crystallise them whole, which makes a nice sweetie. You can also chocolate dip the crystallised fruits, if you like such things.

[simmo116]

Don't even bother with supermarket lychees.....

when i lived in thailand of the many food harkers peddling the wares. my favourite was the lychee man. you could get a branch for a couple of pence. cant get much fresher.i was also quite fond of rambutans realy weired lookin fruit
.http://images.google.co.uk/imgres?imgurl=http://z.about.com/d/thaifood/1/0/l/I/rambutansstep5.jpg&imgrefurl=http://thaifood.about.com/od/howtopreparethaifruit/ss/rambutanfruit_5.htm&usg=__S2-OSu-QiHUMy-NlwsOCAmVJGAo=&h=270&w=350&sz=180&hl=en&start=18&sig2=q0I9PXYGu7Xf-Li5D56gEw&um=1&tbnid=oRFV9kUJEleiuM:&tbnh=93&tbnw=120&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dtrambutans%26hl%3Den%26safe%3Doff%26sa%3DN%26um%3D1&ei=v_VAS9y5DKWI4ga78fDIDA

[lottie lou]

Fresh rambutans straight from the tree for breakfast...........ooooh

[pigeonseed]

Imported fruit often tastes musty, doesn't it?

I only realised what the fuss about mangos and pineapples was when I went to India - I hadn't travelled much before.

And yet people thought apples were exotic, and a treat. When I visited someone's house once, they got an apple out of the fridge, all wrapped in paper, and cut into slices so the guests could all share it!

Apples are nice too of course - but my favourite is probably papaya. So fragrant!

[artichoke]

Have just spent 10 days in Singapore and went mad on the fruit, papaya and lime for breakfast every morning, grapes, mangoes, dates, lychees, everything I could lay my hands on.

[Vinlander]

I agree with everything you say about fruit that's picked under-ripe.

There are a few fruits that will ripen perfectly well if picked at the right time - like bananas - though the real flavour develops when the skins start to spot black and the flesh goes translucent. Most people prefer them stiff, bland and starchy.

A couple of times I've had the experience of picking yellow bananas off the plant, but I couldn't say they were that much better than the smaller Windward Isles ones we get here.

Actually shop avocados will ripen too - though if they were picked really, really unripe they will never ripen. The avocado growers do seem to get this wrong quite often - unless it is poor handling and storage in transit?

I despair of buying plums - I think they are as bad as any of the examples so far, but without any excuse whatsoever - we can grow excellent plums (20 times better than asian plums) within a few miles of almost everyone in the UK, but hardly any supermarket (or anyone else) bothers to sell anything apart from bullets only fit for cooking.

My real pet hate is sort of opposite - apples that have been over-ripened in store to the point where they are sweet mealy mush.

I realise there are two camps on this subject, and I accept that people without teeth deserve to be able to buy what they like, but so do I.

Also - I'm wondering if there isn't a third issue:

Am I the only person who thinks many very ripe apples have bitter skins?

How can anyone eat Gala? to me it tastes like mashed potato wrapped in privet leaves!

Is this another genetic thing?

Anyone?

[PurpleHeather]

These imported fruits we get are tasteless. I have been to all sorts of places and have eaten the most exotic fruits within hours of them being freshly harvested as ripe. Nothing like the cardboardy stuff we can buy.

We all know as growers that our fresh stuff tastes better than a few days old supermarket force fed organically/chemically grown and cleaned stuff resorced locally (allegedly).

I bought some tomatoes last week which were almost like peppers when halved, great gaps where there should have been moist flesh. There was a slight tomato taste admittedly. But I suspect it was a long time since they had dangled on their vines.

I am convinced some people buy fruit for decoration then throw them away when they start to go off. I am sure no one is buying them for the flavour.