You can’t import yuzu fruits or plants. All the yuzu in the US is descended from the 100 original plants imported before it was made illegal.
But really, I want soft cheeses…
We can get yuzu fruit here (Florida) but couldn’t get the seeds to sprout, not sure how the trees are propagated. Anyway - the fruit is underwhelming, the zest is divine, I made a yuzu kosho, it is delicious.
Almost all fruit trees are clones. You’d need a cutting.
I wish we had less selection, in general. My family lives in Spain, and I’ve also lived in France. This is just my observation, but American grocery stores clearly emphasize always having a consistent variety, whereas my Spanish family expects to eat higher quality produce seasonally. I suspect that this is a symptom of a wider problem, not the cause, but American groceries are just fucking awful by comparison, and so much more expensive too.
What I would give for an actual fresh greengrocer 😔
Fresh food is weirdly expensive in the US. Got to give the US props for being consistently expensive when it comes to health related expenses I guess.
It seems bizarre for such a rich country to have the priorities so backwards.
health and well being? Nah.
I’ve heard rumors that, while we see two kinds of mango in the US, there are many more varietals in India, and they’re all better. I’d like to have access to some of those; mangoes rock.
That’s the truth, not a rumor.
I suspect this is like our tomatoes. The tomatos you buy in stores were cultivated to be pretty, to get harvested by a machine, and to ship without getting damaged. Meanwhile, heirloom tomatoes will split their skin on a humid day, but they pack a ton more flavor in. The same is true for the vast majority of our fruit and veg. Actually ripened on plant produce doesn’t have a very long shelf life.
That’s not what heirloom tomatoes are. Heirloom means they’re not hybrids. There are loads of heirloom and hybrid varieties with all kinds of properties, flavours, shapes and sizes.
I was generalizing about heirlooms not being very easy to grow to modern standards. I grow a decent verity of heirlooms and hybrids and the hybrids don’t split nearly as often.
Also large tomatoes which split are usually classed as beefsteak tomatoes. There are heirlooms like Brandywine and hybrids like Brandy Boy. And if you don’t grow tomatoes yourself you’ll never know the difference.
And if you don’t grow tomatoes yourself you’ll never know the difference.
What do you mean? Once you have home grown, or even farm stand, produce you realize that the vast majority of grocery store stuff is picked before it’s really ripe.
You’re confused.
I rarely see leeks, and when I do, they’re extremely expensive. Such a versatile vegetable that I wish more Americans knew about!
Where do you live where leeks are not common? Speaking for California here, they’re a common grocery store item.
Midwest here, I too can buy leeks any day of the week
Bananas other than the Cavendish and a greater variety of potatoes. There are supposed to be so many varieties of each out there, but we only get one banana and 3 or 4 potatoes.
The cherimoya is also pretty good from what I remember, so I would like to have that again for >$5.
I had a cherimoya in Spain and I LOVED it. Impossible to find here in NA though :(
The variety of bananas in Vietnam was great. I was going to put that here since they are impossible to import quickly enough.
Big fan of cherimoya ✋ Looked into ordering some online once, the price is insane
Persimmons. I know they’re available at least in the bay area because I had them when I lived there briefly, but have never found them in my regular home in the pacific northwest. I also don’t remember them as a kid growing up in Tennessee.
I get them in Texas from the Korean market. I don’t know that they’re available year round though.
I’d be surprised if you couldn’t find any via Asian markets in the Pacific Northwest.
Oooh I haven’t checked there, thank you!
I keep thinking back to this. I believe persimmons are in season in the fall, so if you don’t find them now, go back in a few months and you should have better luck.
Strawberries that taste like they did 10+ years ago?
When I was a kid in the 80’s there was a place my Grandmother used to take us to that had hay rides to take you out into their strawberry fields where you’d pick your own berries and pay like 50¢ per pound.
Good memories.
You must mean like 5 or 10 right?
I can buy strawberries at the store now a days for $1 a pound.
It’s not common but it’s not really uncommon, maybe once every month or two
Like much store bought produce, grocery store strawberries are picked not fully ripe to make them easier to transport. On pant ripened most anything will nearly always be better than store bought, but you better be ready to use it quickly.
Strawberries are so easy to grow that they are almost invasive.
If you leave them alone, they will overtake whatever is near them.
Each strawberry plant I have sends off multiple runners, with multiple nodes per runner.
It is a very high exponential growth rate.
You can start with 4 and have over 100 in 2 years.
I know this because we have a random strawberry bush in a crack in front of our garage but it’s just from last year and only making tiny berries right now.
In a couple years maybe I’ll have good berries.
I am not aware of strawberry bushes. Are you sure we are still talking about strawberries?
It’s a plant lol
I have a hard time finding black currant
Yes! As a Scandinavian living in the US: I would love to see black currant, red currant, and gooseberries in my grocery store.
And cloudberries! I want to taste cloudberries!
Yes! Forgot about those.
Isn’t blackcurrant illegal in the US? I remember hearing that somewhere anyway.
Such a shame, cassis (blackcurrant soda) makes for such a tasty drink.They are now legal to grow in many states. Unfortunately still not going to find it in a grocery store most likely. I grow my own in the backyard so I can have some at least part of the year. They’re perennial, very easy to grow, and produce a ton of berries. Gooseberries were banned for similar reasons, but are now also legal in many states.
