I don’t think I’ve ever eaten a peach from a grocery store that didn’t suck.
Since I’ve lived in this area, I’m spoiled for stone fruits. I’m a mile away from one of the last remaining orchards near Silicon Valley, and the peaches, nectarines, apricots, pluots, cherries, and plums are always heavenly. I don’t buy them anyplace else, not even farmers’ markets.
However, I haven’t eaten good crisp sweet watermelon in years. These new seedless varieties are missing something. High quality canteloupe is almost equally hard to find, though I do stumble across one in a farmer’s market occasionally.
As far as pears, I wait until the Comice are in season and then buy them by the dozen. And apples - I agree with the Honeycrisp faction above, and don’t buy any other type. Luckily both are available at the supermarket.
Only the pineapples grown in Hawaii have that deep sweet almost spicy flavor that I crave. Most of the ones in markets here are from Costa Rica, and they just don’t measure up. I have to visit a particular supermarket to get the Hawaiian ones - either that or go to Hawaii!
Watermelons - have been great. I eat an entire watermelon every week during the summer.
Cantaloupes - most have been good, especially the Athena and Suger Kiss
Strawberries - CRAPPY - I will not buy them anymore. They’re never sweet.
Raspberries - my favorite of all berries have not been very good this summer - tasteless
Blueberries - meh. I find them lacking in flavor all the time.
Blackberries - good all summer
Grapes - I don’t usually buy them in the summer, until now when the Moondrops are out. EXCELLENT!
Apples - I don’t buy these in the summer either. I’ll start eating them within a month or so. My favorite variety is the Pink Lady or Courtland.
Oranges & clementines - I eat them in the winter
All of these are fruits that I buy at our local grocery store, WalMart or Sam’s Club. So most of them come from some other region usually. I pick wild raspberries, strawberries and blueberries when I can find them before the critters get them. Those are always sweet and good.
I’ve given up forever on peaches. They apparently don’t grow well here in the northeast, and the ones in the grocery store are trucked up from down south 10 months out of the year. Hard, cold, greenish, and sour. Sometimes I buy a little cup of cut up strawberries and blueberries for $2, which seems a lot. Fruit is expensive. A container of cut up fruit with pineapple, mango, blackberries, and melon is $12. I had wild black raspberries growing in my backyard for years, they have sadly declined, and I planted red raspberry bushes. They were decimated by japanese beetles and birds, so those were a failure. I did find wild blueberries growing on bushes around the church parking lot, though I wonder if car exhaust fumes would have affected them in some way.
Bumping this to say that I tried to buy peaches one last time last week…they were dry, just like all the others this season. White nectarines haven’t been that great either. I’ve also had some weird pears; they look and feel fine, but the insides are brown.
Store-bought cucumbers have been hit or miss; the pickling ones have tended to turn mushy within a day of purchase.
Honeycrisp apples were available for an unusually long time this year, and were awesome.
All berries have been really good this year, even the blackberries, which typically just taste acidic.
Grapes have been outstanding! We have moondrops and cotton candy available now; gumdrops were available for about a week in August.
Oregon–we had a stellar year for Hood strawberries, which you only know about if you live here because they’re very soft and delicate and don’t ship worth a damn. Those held out until July, very unusual, then as soon as it got hot they were done.
Cherries were not bad–Rainiers were good but not plentiful but the Bing and Black Tartarians were both, nicely crisp and sweet.
Had a bit of watermelon, all pretty good.
I’ve given up on peaches and nectarines–they always LOOK good but seldom live up to their appearance.
No complaints on the grapes, very good.
I’ve been getting avocados from Costco and they tend to be pretty decent–was getting them from Grocery Outlet but they’ve been having that never ripen, just turn dark and bitter issue so no thanks.
I just bought some grapes called Candy Dreams, and damn if they don’t taste like cotton candy. I’m not sure I like them though - I find the flavor weirdly disturbing in a grape. I like the Thomcord grapes I get from the co-op market more - since they are a Concord cross, they taste a lot more like I think grapes should.
Our CSA will be delivering a few nectarines this week - I haven’t had nectarines in years. I hope they don’t suck. We’ll also be getting some Granny Smith apples, which I think will be put into some scones.
Watermelons are decent this year; everything else that I’ve tried (strawberries, cherries, honeydew, cantaloupe, grapes, oranges) ranged from meh to yucky. Even bananas were somewhat disappointing. I’m in St. Louis, Missouri. I have taken to eating mostly canned fruit, or the fruit that comes in those little plastic individual servings. It seem less environmentally friendly, but I can eat all of it and not throw fruit into the trash after one bite.
White nectarines haven’t been that great either. I’ve also had some weird pears; they look and feel fine, but the insides are brown.