Kitchen Garden Forum

I don't know whether anybody else has noticed, but many of the satsumas, clementines and similar citrus fruit we've been buying recently have been really "pappy" and juiceless. Their skins are all bright and shiny but when you peel them the segments insides are all dried up and virtually useless for eating. Is there any consumer trick to picking out good quality fruit or is it just a case of taking pot luck?

I think is always the case with citrus fruits - some weeks we buy them and they are delicious and other times dry. I don't really know how to judge before peeling and would love any tips.

You may wish to edit your post, glallotments.

WestHamRon wrote:You may wish to edit your post, glallotments.

Have done

I'm the same and also with the kiwi that no matter what you do with them they refuse to soften and ripen. Ive been buying some lovely ones and then last lot was so hard it ended up all wrinkly. Nothing for it but the compost bin.

Beryl.

I just buy the navel oranges at this time of the year as they are at their best, thin skinned and lovely and juicy

The only way that I have ever found of checking if an orange is fresh is to look at the nobbly bit at one end (where it was attached to the tree proably). In a fresh fruit it will be nice and green, in not so fresh fruit it will be going brown and in the oldest fruit that they sometimes try to flog off in supermarkets it will be going dark brown/black.
This is a good indicator of freshness but taste is always a bit hit and miss.

Another little trick that seems to happen when packing oranges into nets is that some old fruit is mixed in with the fresh.

The problem will all supermarket fruit is that it is harvested too early in the hope that it will finish ripening its the way to the shelves. Often this doesn't work and it never does ripen and if it does there is no flavour.
Bananas are the worst in this respect - often for sale when they are bright green! And don't get me going about peaches, beautiful coloured skin on the outside but hard, pale green and tasteless inside.

John

John wrote:The problem will all supermarket fruit is that it is harvested too early in the hope that it will finish ripening its the way to the shelves. Often this doesn't work and it never does ripen and if it does there is no flavour.
Bananas are the worst in this respect - often for sale when they are bright green! And don't get me going about peaches, beautiful coloured skin on the outside but hard, pale green and tasteless inside.

John

I once complained about this to the supermarket and was told that they can't put ready to eat fruit our as people bruise it when testing for ripeness. (They wouldn't do this if they were confident that fruit would be ripe)

I was told to just put peaches on the windowsill to ripen to which I replied that it didn't work and the fruit was tasteless. The guy just shrugged.

Sorry you said not to mention peaches didn't you?

gallotments, I get my citrus fruit from riverford, only once have I ever needed to complain and I got a prompt replacement and no quibble and that was not over fruit and veg, but baked goods, that had bits of packaging in it, just someones carelessness. Their meat is expensive but veg and fruit is cheaper than the supermarkets and no waste all good quality, plus it doesn't cost me expensive fuel to collect as they deliver an organic box weekly. I slipped on mud in the garden and my hip has been really painful since, their stuff is like mine, does fine till I get my hip better and can garden again.

Nature's Babe wrote:gallotments, I get my citrus fruit from riverford, .

We now get fruit from a local greengrocer but even he can only stock what is available and can't predict whether the citrus fruit is juicy. We rarely buy vegetables.

We only buy oranges, and then only for juicing, so dry ones are useless to us. We buy from Tesco, Waitrose, Asda and Morrisons, depending on where we are. I can honestly say that we only experience dry fruits about once a year.