Dave's Market Update 03.02.2015

IN FRUIT

The Australian mango season keeps rolling ahead with honey gold mangoes the highlight for this week. A wonderfully aromatic and flavoursome mango honey golds are currently from far north Queensland and a must for all mango connoisseurs. Rockmelons are still in very good supply in the peak of season in terms of eating quality. New season Williams pears are now available. A beautiful soft skinned fruit the William pears are best eaten when golden yellow. The season however is only a relatively short one so be sure to add them to this week’s shopping list.New gala apples are fantastic to eat. The first of the new season apples are arriving in strong numbers. Look for prices to fall in the coming weeks. For those looking for something a bit different you should try new season Prickly pears. Many customers were put off buying this fruit due tothe spines that made the fruit difficult and uncomfortable to handle but these days the fruit is brushed and perfectly safe to human hands.The brighter highly coloured Prickly pears are the sweetest and are what the buyers should be looking for. Some of the uses of Prickly Pears is to relieve the symptoms of overindulgence in alcohol and nausea.

IN VEGETABLE

With some adverse weather conditions persisting around the country vegetable lines remain quite difficult to procure. Broccoli, lettuce, cos lettuce, red caps, corn and Wombok have been most affected. Better news on the vegetable front is that broccolini is available in some good numbers and quality is great. Broccolini is a cross between broccoli and Chinese broccoli. Customers should be wary of imitation products which don’t eat anywhere near the eating quality as the original broccolini. The easiest way to distguish broccolini from the imitators’ is in the sweetness of the stalk. Broccolini stalks are sweet and very good eating whilst many of the imitations have stalks which are bitter and in many cases quite inedible.