We don’t have non-seasonal fruit here; I don’t think people want it. Standards are too high, I guess.
When did fruit become all season? I’m almost 40 and I recall fruits always being available year round (I don’t remember the 1980s very well though).
Asparagus can be grown in greenhouses.
Living in the Midwest, we’re in persimmon season, and this is just about the only time of year when they’re available. If you’re unfamiliar with them, they ripen in late fall, and they MUST be “ripe” to the point of starting to look rotten or they will be nasty in both taste and texture. Once they start to smell fruity, they’re some wonderful eatin’.
I live in the South and I don’t bother buying apples from anywhere between January and October. They’re all very potato, even the $6 ones from Whole Foods. Likewise avocados are garbage between August and May.
I’m thankful for the global food distribution we have, but it doesn’t work miracles.
It just now occurs to me that Japan is very big on seasonal fruit (seasonal foods in general). I don’t pretend to be an expert, but IMO there is nothing in the world like a springtime white peach in Japan. Also likely nothing more overpriced.
nearwildheaven - I have a persimmon tree in my backyard. American persimmon, not the Japanese varieties. My horses and dogs eat them off the ground.
StG
Stone fruits are definitely seasonal, especially plums. You never see them after Labor Day, especially the white ones.
While you can get nuts year-round, you can only get nuts in the shell around Christmas.
I think the nuts in the shell thing is a Christmas thing as in nobody wants to shell nuts any other time.
my personal favorite limited time fruit is blood oranges. So, so good.
In Hawaii, we don’t get a lot of good seasonal fruit except for what’s grown locally. Peak watermelon season is July-August, with the melons before and after just not as sweet. Other times, those tiny Thai watermelons are usually available year-round. In the 60’s and 70’s, there was mango, lychee and star fruit season, around springtime and people would bring boxes of them to give away, to any social gathering. As house lots have shrunk, those trees are far less common and these fruits are sold for outrageous prices (compared to free) for both local and imported varieties, with the imported fruits available almost year round. I haven’t eaten a mango in years, possibly decades and will never eat one again if I have to pay for it (which I never have).
Yep, like 4 to 5 bucks for one.
When I was a kid it seemed like watermelons were only available for a few weeks every summer, but every one was incredible, and full of seeds.
I may be wrong on this, but ISTR that certain fruits like apples and some varieties of citrus grown in the US(lemons and oranges in particular) are picked in the normal season, and then stored in climate controlled warehouses with a specific atmosphere of some kind- basically they put them in storehouses set at a specific low temp, and regulate the mixture of gases in the storehouse in order to massively delay ripening.
As such, I’m pretty sure that the apples and oranges we’re eating in the late summer are US grown and picked the previous fall.
And, FYI, the trick with asparagus is getting it as absolutely fresh as possible. I had no idea how important that was until our asparagus plants started producing several years ago. There’s a distinct sweetness that goes away within a few days of picking, and after that, they all pretty much taste the same for quite a while.
Potatoes also can be warehoused for a long time before being sold.
That’s a great principle, but in some parts of the country “non-local” is pretty monotonous, or else boutique-level prices and availability.
And much of it on grocery store shelves is grown (off-season) in countries like Peru and Ecuador too.
True, they store for many months. I tried growing potatoes in my veggie garden a few years ago and was fairly successful (talk about a non-demanding crop), but discovered to my disappointment there wasn’t a great deal of difference in flavor and texture between the home grown and commercial varieties. Potatoes seem to taste like potatoes no matter their origin.
Now if you’re looking for a fruit where there is a big difference between home grown and commercial try strawberries. The only thing most commercial varieties have going for them is they ship well. The berries in the back yard are much less firm but have a great deal more flavor.
My understanding as to apple storage is similar to yours. But at the stores I most often visit, the majority of produce seems to be labeled WRT origin either on the in-store bin/shelf, or on those annoying little stickers affixed to each piece of fruit. Once I noticed that, I was surprised at how much of what I eat near Chicago has travelled great distances - much from S. America.
We get a pretty broad variety here (DFW area) as well- apples are invariably from Washington or Oregon, grapes are either from California or Chile depending on the time of year, and peaches are a mixed bag- sometimes Georgia, mostly California. (we get them at the localorchards though). Citrus is stranger- lemons seem to be exclusively from California, oranges seem to be a mix of California and Texas, limes seem to be exclusively from Mexico, and grapefruit seem to be predominantly from Texas. Melons are another mixed bag one- early in the season, they’re often from Mexico or Central America, but as they come into season, they’re mostly from the US, with almost all watermelons from Texas, cantaloupes being TX or CA, and I don’t know where the honeydews come from. I don’t know if that’s a buy-local kind of thing, or if that’s true nationwide. Cherries seem to be exclusively a early-mid summer thing, and are almost always from Washington or Oregon.
When I was a kid, the only veggies available in the winter were root vegetables and hothouse grown tomatoes and lettuce. The tomatoes were tasteless. We used some canned veggies. Then frozen foods started appearing, but we had no space for more than some ice cubes and a can or two of juice.
The existence of fresh fruit all year around is one of the biggest changes in my lifetime.
Ah, that frugal Honshu life must be nice 
You may be right about some cases. The apples I buy in Summer labeled as being from Chile. I don’t pretend to be an expert on the distribution network, but I know that my out-of-season fruit is usually so flavorless that I don’t bother.