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| Last week’s Your Produce Man’s Produce Puzzzzle dealt with Kiwifruit: What Kiwifruit variety does not have fuzz? There are over 65 varieties of Chinese Gooseberries (Kiwifruit) still in China today. One of those varieties had a gold flesh, and it had no fuzz. The problem was this Kiwifruit was too small to sell. So growers in New Zealand took this gold-colored, fuzzless Kiwifruit, and crossed it with the Hayward variety, the Kiwifruit we all know today. What they ended up with was larger sized Kiwifruit, gold color inside and no fuzz outside. They call it…Zespri Gold Kiwifruit. This week's Your Produce Man’s Produce Puzzzzle deals with grapes: What grape was originally named "Lady DeCoverly"? See next week’s Fresh Tips for the answer. |
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PLUOT (Monday, August 1): JK Rowling turned 40 yesterday. Her newest Harry Potter book has already broken records for sales. Well, let’s talk about the hottest stonefruit in the orchard this year. It, too is breaking sales records. Meet Floyd Zaiger. He has spent over 40 years of his life, tinkering around the pollen of Peaches, Plums, Nectarines, Apricots and Cherries. He’s been on the hunt for the perfect fruit. He’s the “Albert Einstein of Stonefruit.” If you are in pursuit of the perfect Plum, pick a Pluot. Sounds more like some new imported car. Sold commercially for the first time in 1989, the Pluot (75% plum, 25% apricot) was developed by Professor Pluot, better known to his family as Floyd Zaiger, a California fruit breeder determined to improve upon the plumcot, a 50-50 mix developed a century ago by Luther Burbank. The Pluot is an “interspecific,” a complex hybrid that Zaiger developed over several generations of trees, sweeter than the average plum. Certainly something about the word “pluot” evokes images of laboratories and gene splicing rather than fruit trees and farmers. These have not been genetically modified. Remember, the first plum/apricot cross happened over a century ago in Santa Rosa, California by Luther Burbank, who also happened to hybred the Burbank Russet Potato. What Zaiger did was take the 50/50 Plumcot from Burbank and cross it one more time with another Plum, making the Pluot 75% Plum and 25% Apricot. In the early days of Zaiger’s work, almost all of the original plum-apricot crosses were sterile, but a few bore fruit, and Zaiger started saving the seedlings of the most flavorful ones for further crossings. Even today, Zaiger’s hybridization is painstaking, involving elaborate climate control and transferring pollen with an eyebrow brush. Now that’s an Extreme makeover. Still to come from the Zaiger Nursery, slated for 2010: white apricots, nectaplums, peacotums and…well, he’ll tell us later. By the way, Zaiger continues a long heritage of great fruit breeders. One of the greatest in our time was, of course, Luther Burbank. One of Burbank’s students was Fred Anderson, who happened to come up with the very first yellow-fleshed Nectarine in the 1940s. It revolutionized the Nectarine industry. One of Anderson’s students was…you guessed it, Floyd Zaiger. “Breeding stonefruit is a lot like playing poker,” Zaiger tells me. “Except, in poker, when you get a good hand, you’re done. In what I do, when I get a good hand, I keep playing.”
WHITE STONEFRUIT (Tuesday, August 2): Our great-grandparents knew all about white flesh peaches and nectarines. In fact, up until WWII, all Nectarines were white flesh. White flesh stonefruit are very fragile, which is why they went out of popularity in the 50s. American families were on the go. They need a peach or nectarine that could go on the go with them. Yellow-fleshed peaches and nectarines have a firmer flesh that holds up better and will last longer, which is what the consumer began demanding back in the 50s. So the white flesh varieties became less popular and eventually disappeared, except at a few farmers markets in the middle of summer. Today, the popularity of white flesh stonefruit has jumped dramatically. Just a decade ago, only about 1% of the stonefruit crop was white in flesh. Today, it’s closing in on about 20 - 25% of the crop. On this date, 1815, Wellington defeated Napoleon at the Battle of Waterloo. It was rumored that the fight was over white flesh nectarines. White flesh nectarines were so adored by the kings and queens of England, that harvesters would literally harvest the fruit and place it on a pillow to be taken to the King or Queen. Many of the white flesh peaches and nectarines today have much lower acid content, which is why the taste sweet. But many times, the acid in a fruit provides a good balance for the sugar, giving a piece of fruit a richer flavor. Because the white flesh stonefruit has less acid, the fruit will taste just as sweet when they are mature and firm as they will when they are soft and ripe. This makes the white flesh peaches and nectarines a good cooking fruit, especially for grilling. The flesh is firmer, so it holds up better during the cooking process.
CELERY ROOT (Wednesday, August 3): Despite its association with root vegetables, celery root (or celeriac, as it is sometimes called) has a certain panache. Perhaps this is due to its honored place in the French specialty, celery remoulade, or because it makes such luxurious pairings with dried cepes or with tender artichoke hearts. In the form of a distinctive salad or soup, celery root is often served apart from the meal, either first or as a separate course. As one old American cookbook suggests: "Serve....after the roast-piece of the dinner." Most cookbooks, however, simply ignored the vegetable, also called soup celery, celery knob, and turnip rooted celery -- by any name. In fact, it enjoys wide popularity in this country only in German communities, where it is pureed and in stews. Celery Root has a pungent celery-like flavor and is, in fact, a special variety of celery, developed by gardeners during the Renaissance. In recipes calling for cauliflower, fennel or cardoon, celery root makes an interesting and unexpected substitute if not a quantum improvement. This ugly root is also known as “celeriac,” “celery knob” or “German celery.” This underrated vegetable is a relative of celery that's been developed for its root, which has a pleasant celery flavor. It's popular in France and Northern Europe, where it's usually peeled and cooked in stews or grated and served raw. It’s available year-round, but is in peak supply during the Winter, from October through April. The sprouting tops should have a bright color to them, a sign of freshness. Make sure there is no decay on the root. When you get it home, wrap it in a plastic bag and refrigerate for up to a week.
NAVEL ORANGES (Thursday, August 4): Aussie Navels are here. From the land down under comes the premier eating orange in the world, the Navel Orange. West of the Murray River, it’s wasteland. East of the Murray River, it’s an agricultural paradise. And the Australian growers have two brothers from California to thank for their rich agricultural heritage. The Chaffey Brothers, from Fresno, California, immigrated to Australia in the late 1800s. There, they became the pioneers of irrigation on the southeast coast of Australia, setting the stage for the agricultural industry to flourish in Australia. You will find the same street names in Fresno as you do in Renmark, South Australia. That’s where the Chaffey Brothers settled. Today, this region grows one of the finest eating quality Navel Oranges found anywhere in the world. The climate in southeastern Australia is very similar to the San Joaquin Valley in California. That’s where 90% of America’s Navel Oranges are grown. In Southeastern Australia, a thriving citrus crop is grown, packed and then exported to the Pacific Rim and North America. “There isn’t a mid-season Navel Orange that has the perfect blend of sugar and acid, as do the Australian Navel Orange,” says Trevor Warren, a citrus grower in South Australia. Most citrus is grown in three states, South Australia, New South Wales and Victoria. Here, the climate is similar to the San Joaquin Valley with cold, frosty winters and warm, summer days. Here, also, irrigation is a premium…and costly. Most growers, according to Warren, have gone to either drip irrigation or micro-jet irrigation, both technologies gained from farmers in Israel. “You will find very little open flow irrigation in Australia,” Warren says. “There is simply too much evaporation with open flow irrigation, and we need every drop of water we can get.” Australian growers started the process of exporting to the United States in the early 1980s. It took 15 years to convince the USDA that the pests in Australia would be quarantined and would pose no threat to citrus crops in the United States. So, in 1992, the first Aussie Navels made their way to the United States. About 400,000 cartons were imported that year. This year, Australia expects to ship about 1.5 million cartons of Navel Oranges to the United States. Growers in Australia say that this year’s crop is one of the cleanest. Usually, desert winds will dangle the oranges in the tree, causing some scarring. But this year, winds were at a minimum, so scarring will be at a minimum as well, leaving some very clean fruit.
PARSLEY (Friday, August 5): Tomorrow is “National Fresh Breath” day. So what does fresh breath have to do with produce? Better still, what does fresh breath have to do with today’s topic: Parsley? Most of us just think of Parsley as a garnish on a plate in a restaurant. There are main types of parsley we see in the stores. There is the curly leaf type, and there is the flat leaf type, or Italian Parsley. If you are cooking, many chefs prefer to use the flat Italian Parsley because it has a more culinary flavor. Both of these types of Parsley also have great breath freshening qualities. The chlorophyll, which makes up the green in Parsley, is nature’s breath freshener. So, don’t throw the Parsley away. After a meal, brush your teeth…with Parsley.
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