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Produce News For March 1, 2010

EGGPLANT (Monday, March 1):  Hey, here we are in the middle of Lent, and that means you need a good meat substitute if you’re giving up meat.  Well, I have for you the perfect meat substitute.  That’s right.  Beautiful eggplant.  It is world class meat substitute.  Now in picking out your best eggplant, there’s a couple things I want you to look for.  First of all….this one right here.  I want you to notice there’s some browning on it.  That’s actually called chill damage.  That browning is actually going to get very, very soft.  You don’t want this.  This just proves to you, do not put your eggplant in the refrigerator.  It will get that chill damage very, very quickly.  Now, if you’re at the store, here’s what I want you to do.  I want you to pick up two eggplant just like this, and I want you to rub them together.  Do you hear that squeak?  Let me do that again.  I just love hearing them squeak.  Yeah, a squeaking eggplant is a very fresh eggplant.  If you also notice, turn this over and look at the calyx.   It’s the little hat on top.  It’s the stem end.  It needs to be really nice and green and shiny.  Those are some really good eggplant. 
I’m Michael Marks…Your Produce Man.
BLOOD ORANGES (Tuesday, March 2):  Hey, don’t blame me.  I don’t know who the guy or the gal was that decided, “Hey, let’s market these oranges as blood oranges.”   I don’t know who figured out that that was a fantastic marketing name for an orange, but these indeed are a Moro variety, Moro blood orange.  And I’ll cut one open right here and show you why it’s called a blood orange.  It looks like an orange on the outside.  Cut it in half.  Take a look that gorgeous red color.  Oh, my goodness!  That red color - can you imagine that absolute gorgeous red color in a fruit salad or perhaps in a green salad?  You can turn this…you know, you can just slice them, section them.  But man, this Moro blood orange - If you love Mediterranean cooking, the Moro blood orange is very, very popular in sauces, in drinks, in side dishes of Mediterranean cooking.  So if you’ve never tried this, they’re a little bit more expensive because they don’t grow a lot of them, but you will love the absolute fragrance and color of a blood orange.  Just get by the name.  I’m Michael Marks…Your Produce Man.
TANGELOS (Wednesday, March 3): Hey, here it is.  It’s the larger of the tangerines, but we actually call these tangelos.  Tangelo actually comes from the name tangerine and pomelo.  We put those two together.  That’s actually how they hybrid these.  Tangerine and pomelo – tangelo.  Those two get together, and this is the one called a mineolla, and you can always tell a mineola because it kind of looks like the shape of a bell and up on top it has the little what we call in the produce industry a little sheep nose.  But these are fantastic.  They have very few seeds…very, very sweet.  It’s a mid to late season citrus so that means it has been sitting on the tree for quite some time, and it has been gaining juice content and gaining sugar content, and all that time it’s also gaining flavor.  So if you’re trying to get your family to eat more fruits and vegetables; they’re kind of done with the clementine; why don’t you go up a notch?  Go to the bigger big brother.  Go to the tangelo.  Try a mineola tangelo.  I’m Michael Marks…Your Produce Man.
RHUBARB (Thursday, March 4):    It is called the last great race, the Iditarod dog sled race.  It starts this weekend in Alaska and so I thought I’d bring out the one fruit or vegetable that most Alaskans believe is native to their fabulous state, and it’s this right here – fabulous rhubarb.  This actually…there’s two types of rhubarb.  There’s field grown rhubarb and there’s this.  This is hothouse rhubarb.  And you can always tell hothouse rhubarb because it’s longer.  It’s much longer.  Look how long these things are.  And also look at the color.  The color is much lighter in that beautiful ruby red color.  It it’s field grown rhubarb, it’s really, really dark red, and also you’ll notice they’re much thinner.   And also I love the hothouse rhubarb for two reasons.  Number one, it doesn’t have all that stringiness to them ‘cause man, some of that field grown rhubarb you’ve got to take those strings out kind of like celery.  And number two, you can use less sugar with hot house rhubarb because it has a better flavor and it doesn’t have that bite to it.  You can use less sugar in your recipes.  I’m Michael Marks…Your Produce Man.
RUSSETT POTATOES (Friday, March 5):  Hey, this weekend the 82nd Academy Awards.  Who’s going to get the Oscar for the Lifetime Achievement Award?  Right?  Well, also born this weekend was a guy by the name of Luther Burbank.  Most of you have never ever in a million years heard of Luther Burbank, but if there was a Lifetime Achievement Award in the world of produce, if we gave out Oscars, it would go to Luther Burbank because so many fruits and vegetables came from the scientific hands of Luther Burbank, and one of the most famous, that’s right.  Right here.  We call it the russet potato.  And this variety is actually called the Burbank russet potato.  That’s right. It’s named after him.   It is the number one russet potato grown in the world today.  It’s the number one russet potato right here in the good old US of A.  It’s the perfect baking potato.  If you love to fry them or turn them into hash browns or cottage fries.  Oh, my goodness!  Thank you, Luther Burbank, for the Burbank Russet potato.   I’m Michael Marks…Your Produce Man.