Guess I should have mentioned that I live in Iowa, U.S.A.
Cauliflower heads vary in size at different times of the year; at some times, they’re almost as big as basketballs, and at other times, I’m lucky to find them softball-sized, but they’re still the same price.
That’s why I find it somewhat odd to go for a per unit price, with produce that has such large size variability. On the other hand, it’s an easy way to obfuscate how much you’re really getting for each dollar.
It’s not that I’m having trouble finding it, it’s that it cost six bucks for a small head at Kroger last week. I can’t afford it! I have to suffer the frozen kind but it never tastes as good.
I’ve never knowingly bought cauliflower. I vaguely recall from my Botany 101, that Broccolli, Kohlrabi, Cauliflower, are actually the same goddamn thing. Figures.
There were similar problems a couple of months ago in the UK and elsewhere in Europe, because of unexpected climatic problems in Spain. Not cauliflower though, I think: broccoli in some places, and one supermarket was rationing Iceberg lettuce for a time.
Time was, of course, it would be quite normal for different vegetables and fruits to disappear as the seasons changed…
In the fall, here in the Northeast, there were enough cauliflowers to feed an Army. Now you’re making me want some! I see a lot of cauliflower ‘rice’ everywhere, is that where the heads disappeared to?
There’s lots of fresh local produce grown in the Northeast, but you won’t see any of it until latish spring through late fall, due to our limited growing season. At this moment we’re heavily dependent on California crops, so the heavy rains are having repercussions.
By July we’ll be awash in high quality summer squash grown in New England and the Hudson Valley, and in August the tomatoes arrive. Can’t wait. Peaches in the summertime, apples in the fall (the apples and root vegetables, the only things available in local farm markets now, have been kept in storage since last year. You only get fresh picked local apples here Sept-Nov, and the breeds mature at different times – Ginger Gold early in Sept, followed by Macoun and Honeycrisp, but you have to wait till Nov for the Stayman Winesaps.)
We should be getting produce soon from Florida and Georgia farms. Those count as “local” for NYers, by virtue of not being in California.
You know how to have big fun when you shop for fruit? Start buying blueberries when the U.S. ones appear in the market, and trace the source from Georgia to the Carolinas to Jersey to Maine to Canada as summer progresses.