Strange Fruit

I am rediscovering the joy of oversized vegetables and fruit.

Sounds a bit dodgy I admit when taken out of context but with our recent family move back into the inner city and a new determination to shop local and support local business I am only now finding out how much my perception of fruit and veg was dictated by the large corporate supermarkets.

My former regular patronage of Sainsbury's in our cosy suburban setting prior to the move blinded me to the true nature of natural produce. The sanitised, scrubbed, pre-weighed and packaged fare represented what I thought was normality in the food chain. I gave no real thought to where my spuds, carrots, turnips and cabbages came from because there were no indications that they had originated in a farmers muddy field, had been battered by inclement weather, chewed at by insects and wildfowl, defecated on by birds and handled by an army of agricultural labourers or the inner workings and intricacies of a marvellous bit of harvesting equipment gracefully pulled along behind a knackered black smoke belching tractor.

There would be a top shelf in the Sainsbury's fruit and veg aisle where a few organic examples would be displayed in all of their ugliness. Customers would shirk away from a purchase not out of disgust at the natural form but more on the basis of the extortionate cost over and above a nice shrink wrap pack of sparkling and perfect produce. It was too easy and I became complacent.

Beautiful fruit and veg looked nice in the fridge or in a bowl on full view to visitors and friends. Perhaps too nice to actually consume and enjoy, becoming more of a fixture than a source of nutrition. Inevitably the fruit and veg would start to go off and then the guilt kicks in of having to throw out any food. The soul searching and embarassment would however be short lived, at least until that moment of redemption in gripping the supermarket trolley handle with both hands and starting the process all over again.

Now, in using small local independent shops I am being re-acquainted with fruit and veg in all of their glory.
It is not, I stress, the case that sole proprietors have to settle for second rate produce after it has been picked over by the Corporate buyers, far from it. The local traders work hard for their supplies often having to get down to the wholesale market at some unearthly hour to secure the latest arrivals from all points around the globe.

The quality is there to be seen, handled and inhaled. My first visit to the nearest five a day outlet was similar in my mind to the excitement at entering a toy shop as a child.

On the pavement a tempting display to rival the best emporiums in the known world. Large buckets of flowers in bouquets and sprays, boxes of tomatoes straight off the lorry from the glasshouses of Holland, apples big enough to play crown green bowls with, pomegranates the size of a football, honeydew melons that could grace a scrum-down at Twickenham, Spanish Onions of proportions that when thinly sliced, fried and served up in a dish resembled fine angel hair pasta.

I could not wait to see the great treasures inside and grasping my shopping bag made my way into Fruitopia..........