There’s another thread talking about clementines and the observation that they used to be great but, as they’ve gotten more widespread, the quality’s gone way down which I concur with.
Another fruit I’ve seen this happen to is honeycrisp apples. Used to be, they were only available in a limited season and each fruit was amazing. More recently, I’ve gotten a lot more bland, mealy honeycrisp than before.
Used to be, about 10 or 15 years ago, navel oranges seemed reliably great but I stopped buying them after they also got dry and cottony.
What are other fruits or vegetables that seem to have gone downhill as production has grown and farmers have tried to cash in on a craze?
There’s a peach described as “donut” or “UFO.” When they first came out a few years ago they were delicious. Now, not so much.
Another apple that was marvelous when we used to buy them at a farm was the Macoun. Crisp, tangy and sweet. These days they are still OK, but the supermarket version is disappointing.
Look for Cara Cara oranges. Always juicy and sweet, at least for now.
I recently bought fresh jalapenos for my black bean and corn salad. I tasted them as I was chopping them, and they had no heat at all, it was like eating a green bell pepper. Have jalapenos been getting milder? What is a good replacement that has some kick, but not habanero kick?
Jalapenos have been bred to a wide range of hotness (for example, TAM Mild) and are generally adapted to the local market. If you’re in a town full of wimps, you’re likely being shipped milder jalapenos. My best bet is usually to get them at Mexican markets where they’re still full of heat vs supermarket ones which tend to be pretty wimpy.
They’re even breeding mild habaneros now which seems somewhat perverse. If you get milder chillis, a mix of jalapenos and serranos tend to up the heat level while still retaining the same flavor.
Or grow your own. If you have a sunny spot somewhere, they’re pretty easy to grow. You can even do it in a pot with a heat lamp. Obviously that doesn’t help Fear Itself now, but it can be a fun and rewarding project.
Most fruit you buy out of season at a supermarket isn’t good.
I do buy strawberries at this time of year in a supermarket because they come from Florida, and they are in season there. Ditto citrus. Both travel fairly well to my area.
But I also saw peaches from another country. Peaches are delicate things – how good would they be?
Strawberries. Any I find at the grocery store, no matter the season, are those giant, hollow, tasteless things better served for garnish than for eating. The only decent (small, sweet) strawberries I find come from local roadside stands.
I feel the general quality of Fuji apples has gone downhill. I remember how they used to tasted noticeably better than other apples. Now they seem to taste like generic apples.
It seems like there’s an unavoidable cycle involved. Some natural food item gets a reputation as being a superior product and people begin buying it in greater numbers. But in order to produce the food item in the amount needed to satisfy the increased demand, the quality that made it superior usually gets sacrificed.
Agreed. The Spooner Farms strawberries that they sell from a stand in front of the grocery store here for two or three weeks in July have spoiled all other strawberries for me.
And then there’s sweet onions. Time was we only got them up here in the summer time when the Walla Wallas were in season, and I’d never even heard of them before I moved up here. Nowadays they’ve got these ones from South America in the off-season that are half-rotten already by the time they arrive and just don’t taste the same. I won’t buy them unless it’s Walla Walla season.
I too don’t see anything wrong with a mild habanero. Or any other variety of chile. They all have different flavors, so it might be nice to have milder versions of some of them. Now, if all you can obtain is mild ones, that’s a problem.