There are those fruits that are available all year round. This thread isn’t about them. This thread is about those fruits that are only properly available during certain seasons. Sometimes, they’re simply not at the stores outside of a brief window; other times, they’re only really good for a short time of the year, even though they’re available year-round
I made my annual crop of calls to local grocery stores, and blood oranges are finally here! It feels like I’ve been waiting for years and years, even though it’s only been 10 months. I have a similar response to the first fragrant peaches of the year.
Blackberries! When I was a little girl I loved to pick blackberries on my grandparents’ farm. I got to gorge myself on the berries, and my grandparents got several hours of child labor for free. Good times.
Good cantaloupe is delightful. Unfortunately, it’s only really good about three weeks out of the year! In-season, local strawberries are excellent, too. Fortunately, they have a slightly longer season than cantaloupe.
Ugli/Uniq Fruit. I can usually find it starting early December and until March or so. It’s easy to peel, the fruit practically floats in the skin. But it’s kind of annoying getting to the actual fruit once it’s peeled. But, it’s so worth it.
I used to have a patch of Black Raspberries in my backyard (sold house in 2003).
Damn, I loved that. I could walk out in the morning, pick a handful and eat them before leaving for work, and then more when I got home, then more a couple of hours later. I loved the way they riped that way, so that there was always a constant supply available.
My Grandparents didn’t have a farm but they did have blackberries are raspberries in their back yard when they lived locally so we loved to pick them when we were little. But they moved when I was about 7ish…
Bah! I haven’t had a decent piece of fruit in years. In season or not. I even thought about starting a thread about it when my wife bought some peaches that were hard as stones. Nothing has any flavor anymore. Apples all taste the same. The only difference is color and texture. Pears? Fuggetaboutit! Break your teeth biting into one. Banannas? Taste like chemicals. Strawberries? Half green and spoil in 2 days! Lemons and Limes are okay I guess, but you just use them for the juice anyway. The last time I enjoyed any fruit was when I visited the Philippines and had Mangoes, Banannas, and Coconuts straight from the tree. You just can’t get anything good in Chicago no matter what the season.
I get organic produce boxes from Newleaf. Good stuff, and I had never realized how different apples of different varieties tasted until I started getting these. I never had a persimmon before, either (yum) (or a kumquat, or a kiwi berry). This store does as much local seasonal stuff as they can, but does supplement the box with stuff from all over, from Florida to California, to Mexico, to keep the variety rounded and especially in winter. Staples of apples, oranges, and bananas for sure, pears in winter which usually need a week on the table to get soft. But everything is delicious! There are several places to get organic produce in Chicago these days - without going to Whole Foods for it. Irv and Shelley’s Fresh Picks delivers to your doorstep, as does Newleaf but not in as many neighborhoods.
I got blood oranges in last week’s, and this week’s box!
I had those once! It was seven years ago during a week long trip to Puerto Rico. I only had a couple but I’ve wanted to try them again since! I wish we could get them here…
Mmmm, clementines. I won’t pay more than $5.99/box for them, which gives me a month or six weeks to enjoy them every year.
Cherries, too, are tasty and affordable for a very short season. Strawberries are getting better and better; we had a good two months of tasty berries from the store last year (we’ve tried growing them, but the deer are a problem).
Our rhubarb is good in the late spring, but it freezes so well, it hardly feels seasonal. Gooseberries too.
And then peach season in mid to late summer, when we always order up a half-bushel from down south, and they arrive so juicy that we have maybe 48 hours to gorge on them and freeze the rest.
Friends of ours have some interesting varieties of apple trees, and bring us big boxes of different kinds of apples in the fall, when they’re ready. I really enjoyed making “artisanal varietal” apple sauces this year. The apples from our own tree are the best and sweetest I’ve ever had, though, they make a sauce as soft and smooth as baby food. And yes, I think that’s a good thing.
My husband likes to forage, and he takes advantage of the black raspberry, blackberry, elderberry, and sumac in the area. They come on in approximately that order… and the crabapples come along about the same time as the blackberries and elderberries, for jam making. The black raspberries are by far my favorite of that lot; much sweeter and less seedy than wild blackberries.
I know of a row of really good mulberry trees that beat everything else, though. The fruits are so soft and juicy and sweet, and taste the way I always thought wine should taste. Bliss.
This season? I don’t know about other places, but here winter is the only time you get good clementines. I like the taste of oranges, I do, but I usually don’t eat them because they’re so messy. Clementines are really easy to peel (and snack-sized, too!), so they make up about 90% of my citrus consumption. Year round.
Until your last line I was guessing you were from Alaska! In my first few weeks down here, I went to one of those roadside stands, and just could NOT get over getting a delicious bag FULL of real fruit for $2.42. You’d pay that for an apple that traveled up the Alcan.
