Kitchen Garden Forum

I buy a lot of my groceries from Lidl, because prices are fair and the quality usually very good. However, I am yet to be convinced by their fruit.

I bought some Coxes apples recently, but instead of having that fascinating balance between sharpness and sweetness, they tasted of absolutely nothing. I wonder how they managed to remove all the taste. Where did it all go? (Maybe the revamped X-files on Channel 5 will see Scully and Mulder look into it!)

Similarly, we ran out of tomatoes recently and had to buy some cherry tomatoes from the local McColls. Yuck! I might as well not have bothered: they tasted of nothing at all. What worries me is that McColls had hundreds of packets of them on their shelves. Who buys these things? I much prefer to go to the larger supermarkets in winter and stump up the cash to buy decent cherry tomatoes.

And yet and yet... Isn't there a major taste difference between what we produce in our vegetables plots and what we can buy at any supermarket? But I am not wholly self-sufficient so do have to buy commercial crops from time to time. OK, the taste isn't always as good as I can produce, but it gets close. But where is the threshold below which we shouldn't sink in terms of taste?

It is worth paying good money for fruit though, isn't it? Cheap oranges are rubbish. The Co-op might claim to be "good with food", but it sells truly awful fruit.

So, while I buy stuff from discount supermarkets, I go to Waitrose or M&S for my fruit. Otherwise, I wouldn't eat anything in winter.

How about you?

Hi Barry
I think the taste problem starts when the shop fruit is harvested. It seems to be picked before it has fully ripened in the forlorn hope that it will continue to ripen on its journey via wholesaler, distribution centre then finally to its shelf in the supersheds.
The outer skin colours up nicely but inside is a mass of unripe flesh. Fruit is often sold as 'ripen at home' - which it doesn't. Peaches are one of the worst examples - look beautiful in their fancy plastic trays but taste of absolutely nothing.
The answer is to grow your own and pick it when its ripe. Few of us though have the time and room to be fully self-sufficient.

John

It is the price you pay for eating unseasonably. Even if you can't be self sufficient buy what is genuinely fresh rather than scientifically stored to appear so. If you want to eat Strawberries with your Christmas dinner or Tomatoes at Easter don't expect brilliant products.

Actually, Geoff, you can now buy reasonably good fruit and vegetables all year round, with some exceptions: notably strawberries. Tomatoes have improved considerably in my life time. When I was a kid, a winter tomato had zero taste; now, if you want to spend the money, tomatoes can be really good. My concern is that alongside this good stuff, supermarkets still stock some really awful tomatoes, which clearly people still buy. This is my dilemma: why on earth would you do that. It makes no sense.

It can only mean that people "like" tasteless tomatoes... are they now the new norm?

Part of the trouble, is a whole generation of people who have no idea what fruit and veg should taste like. They probably think that supermarket taste is normal.

I remember the first time my son-in-law tasted parsnips from my allotment. He never realised that parsnips had a taste before

Parsons Jack wrote:Part of the trouble, is a whole generation of people who have no idea what fruit and veg should taste like. They probably think that supermarket taste is normal.

I remember the first time my son-in-law tasted parsnips from my allotment. He never realised that parsnips had a taste before

Maybe Ireland is different as we grow so much locally and eg parsnips and carrots are always strong flavoured. Fruit and I do not get on but the marmalades and jams i make to sell always have a grand flavour and the rhubarb is amazing.

Geoff wrote:It is the price you pay for eating unseasonably. Even if you can't be self sufficient buy what is genuinely fresh rather than scientifically stored to appear so. If you want to eat Strawberries with your Christmas dinner or Tomatoes at Easter don't expect brilliant products.

Agree totally and great wisdom Geoff. As any grower knows of course. People expect everything at every season and it ruins the pleasure of waiting for that plant to ripen. Just seeing the first rhubarb of the year here and there is nothing like it. I tend to eat in season. More natural and climatic.

Remembering my decade on an Outer Northern Orkney isle; winter vegetables consisted of cabbage and neeps, that grew more battered looking as winter drew on. Only we incomers grew more ambitious crops like peas and froze them; they had only had electricity a few years and the gales were too ferocious for tunnels etc. It was fine though. And I still eat seasonally to this day/ Never tomatoes actually so i am easily pleased.

slight tangent.....I had no left overs to take to work for lunch today (big mistake) so I bought some fresh soup.

Bearing in mind this was an emergency!

I am veggie, lactose and gluten intolerant, so my choice of lunch is very small.

I bought butternut squash soup. Read the ingredients, contains cream and sugar (is this cake??), oh well, not much else on offer for me!

so, back to my original point.....it had no taste at all, just sugary and sickly creamy. I had to throw it away, and ate instead, just some GF toast. I am pretty hungry and angry right now, or hangry.

I have found that even if you find a tasty tomato in a supermarket, you quite often find that in a couple of weeks that same tomato either becomes unavailable or a different supplier suddenly is supplying & it is not as nice. Becoming unavailable is fine that means crops harvested & finished. I know a lot of these supermarkets have teams that do go out & taste the produce so maybe that gives us the first flush of nice taste but then they assume the same variety will taste the same whatever the growing conditions.

My husband is one of those bland tomato lovers, even prefers them cold from the fridge! Taste hey? So subjective - sometimes it is a memory not a taste that makes people prefer something.

Westi

ah, taste...

we had a lecture on taste, which devolved into a 3 hour 'debate' (academic word for argument ) on what taste is ah the memories...

Food preference is a funny thing, that's for sure...

dan3008 wrote:ah, taste...

we had a lecture on taste, which devolved into a 3 hour 'debate' (academic word for argument ) on what taste is ah the memories...

Food preference is a funny thing, that's for sure...

More wisdom and truth! So individual.... And dependent also on health issues an eg meds. Sinus problems affect our sense of taste. I am very easily pleased and eat very simply and parsnips have too strong a taste for me. Cooking apples here are grand. But I think too that lovers of curry and stronger herbs and spices will find tastes change. I use only a little salt. Would be bland for others.

I agree with the thoughts about food being picked under ripe so that it can be held in a suspended state whilst travelling to the country it is being consumed in.

Concept of taste is indeed a individual thing.
During the last 12 months my taste buds have varied from what I would call good to virtually non existent and back to pretty good again.
It isn't always (although pretty damn often) the food that is bland, sometimes its a variance in our own taste sensors.

Having said that, and this has been said many times, the taste of shop purchased food often bears no comparison to that which we grow ourselves.

Is it really any surprise if food that is grown 'out of our season' in other countries does not taste as good as it does in our own growing season

I can only speak for Spain where we are surrounded by fruit farms, peaches are always picked before they are ripe so are cherries and plums they are then taken to the syndicate where they are collected by articulated wagons that are running cooling systems to keep the fruit cold they go to all countries in Europe a lot to Italy, oranges are grown around eight miles from us they are picked ripe and sold at road side farms usually around ten euros for fourteen kilos, I bought a orange press from Amazon the type were you cut the oranges In half and squash each half, I had to try it before we parceled it up I went and bought around ten oranges from Tesco from which I got a small glass of juice in Spain I press five for a pint of juice (I love fresh orange juice)

Pa Snip wrote:I agree with the thoughts about food being picked under ripe so that it can be held in a suspended state whilst travelling to the country it is being consumed in.

Concept of taste is indeed a individual thing.
During the last 12 months my taste buds have varied from what I would call good to virtually non existent and back to pretty good again.
It isn't always (although pretty damn often) the food that is bland, sometimes its a variance in our own taste sensors.

Having said that, and this has been said many times, the taste of shop purchased food often bears no comparison to that which we grow ourselves.

Is it really any surprise if food that is grown 'out of our season' in other countries does not taste as good as it does in our own growing season

Great post and I have been thinking about this. I have M.E and it brings so many food intolerances. There was so much lovely fruit at Christmas, all the big boxes of easy peelers etc and I forgot I cannot cope with fruit and ended up rather ill in unusual ways. But the pink grapefruit were luscious! It is the fruit acid of course. Becoming more and more limited but i enjoy what I can eat. Still love mashed potato and winter mash, peas and beans and soup. But to anyone else, bland it would be. And I graze rather than eat a whole meal. Tend too to eat seasonally. Comes of ten years on a far island then 15 in rural Ireland.. going native!