Now That’s A Fruit Salad!

Laura Avery

Mirror contributing writer

   A recently published book titled "Wild Fruits -- Thoreau's Rediscovered Last Manuscript" contains many closely observed passages describing the discoveries Thoreau made while roaming around the woods of Concord, Massachusetts, where he tasted and experienced all sorts of wild edible things. He notices that fruits "plucked by your own fingers taste different from fruits picked on your behalf by some wage-earning person who doesn't even know you." 
   He also evokes a taste of Fall itself when he states, flushed with pleasure, that "To appreciate the wild and sharp flowers of these October fruits, it is necessary that you be breathing the sharp October or November air. The outdoor air and exercise which the walker gets give a different tone to his palate, and he craves a fruit which the sedentary would call harsh and crabbed." How similar this experience is for modern-day city dwellers who wander weekly around their local farmers' market, plucking fruits and vegetables from the hands of vendors whom they have come to know well, and who often are flushed with wind, the cool, crisp air, and the mile-long walk it may take to cross and re-cross the Market many times before heading home with their tasty treasures.
   Winter citrus crops are among some of the tastiest, especially the POMMELO and ORO BLANCO GRAPEFRUITS. These are oversized, thick skinned (especially in the case of the Pommelo) white-fleshed fruits that are incredibly sweet. Pommelos come off this year well in advance of the Chinese New Year, which will be in February, and they are a traditional gift offered in Asian cultures where they are extravagantly expensive. The Oro Blanco is slightly sweeter and is even more delicate in flavor than the mild WHITE MARSH GRAPEFRUIT, which seems ordinary by comparison. Another surprisingly sweet citrus fruit is the COCKTAIL GRAPEFRUIT, grown in San Diego County by Garcia Organic Farm. This is a small grapefruit that eats almost like a ripe orange, but with a sweet-tart grapefruit tang. They make a lovely, not-too-intense breakfast fruit. 
   SATSUMA MANDARINS have been excellent this year, with very sweet flavor at the first picking. Now the smaller CLEMENTINE MANDARINS are starting to appear, with their delicate, thin-skinned sections which are easy to separate and sprinkle on salads or preserve in brandy. 
A surprising variety of tropical fruits are available at Markets in California, including several types of GUAVAS. These are highly fragrant fruits, especially the yellow-skinned ones such as the TROPICAL and PINK FLESH varieties. Garcia Organics grows the pink-flesh Guava, which is a large fruit almost the size of an orange, with dense, sweet, bright pink flesh. The dark green, small oval shaped PINEAPPLE GUAVA does not give off a guava smell, and it has a sharp-sweet flavor. All guavas have many densely packed seeds inside and a thick but tender, edible skin. 
   And, honestly, if you haven't had a PASSION FRUIT or a very ripe SAPOTE, what are you waiting for? Both of these fruits are grown by Bill Coleman from Carpenteria and are absolutely guaranteed to be delightful. Passion Fruit is nothing but seeds with orange membranes attaching them to the inside wall of the dark, leathery, purple skin. Shocking to behold for the first time, but irresistible to smell and amazing to taste. And that Sapote -- allowed to ripen to extreme softness, then carefully peeled to reveal a firm, waxy flesh that tastes something like the best pear you ever ate, only better. 
   While we are waiting for the first CHERIMOYAS to appear -- more about that later -- it is a good time to enjoy the varieties of PERSIMMONS available at the Market. The most unique is the GOSHO, which is often miscalled a "Giant Fuyu" persimmon because of its flat shape and large size, but it is a variety in its own right. Like the smaller Fuyu, it is seedless, but it has a sweeter flesh, especially when allowed to ripen to softness. All FUYUS can be eaten while hard and crunchy, although the deeper orange the skin, the more developed the flavor is. HACHIYA PERSIMMONS must be soft to the point of translucence to eat, and they slide down the throat like oysters.
   We must consider ourselves fortunate indeed to experience in our 21st century way the pleasures of open-air rambling and the plucking of fruits from the hands of friends as described by Thoreau in his 1851 journals. Some things neither improve nor deteriorate with age -- they remain the same. Lucky us.