People are talking of the terrible summer of "˜77 and saying fruit like Cherry will not get that large this year. Brighter news though includes baby vegetables and in particular the mixes of beetroot and carrot. Mushrooms continue much along the same vein although the first French girolle arrived today. It looks as if it could do with a drink! French wild strawberry has started and the fruit is both larger and tastier than Spanish offerings. Apricots are great with blushed and good flavoured fruit from both Spain and France. Yellow peach from Morocco is delicious, especially the large AA calibre. White peach not nearly as good yet. White nectarine, on the other hand, is the better nectarine to have this week. Flat peach arrived yesterday, both loose and cell-packed. It has a good flavour but is very firm and only in a small calibre this week. Orange flesh melons are improving with Spanish and even French arrivals this morning.
continues and while we all enjoy being in shorts and T-shirts it does have a knock on effect. We will be looking at ice-packed broccoli to try and ensure it arrives in perfect condition with you. Tomatoes are thriving at the moment - our local grower has a fantastic range grown with full respect of nature and all are stunning especially the cherry vine. Mixed Heirloom is very popular and we are looking at trying to get different sizes of fruit. The producer in the South of France has also started and we will be looking at his fruit as it becomes more plentiful and mixed.
The Portuguese are sending their new season leeks up to Paris and they are beautiful. The percentage of white is very impressive and the green leaves are also very usable. The Italians have some superb fennel at the moment too, perhaps another flavour for a salad?
Gold kiwi from New Zealand are proving very popular. A thinner hairless skin and sweeter pale yellow flesh all help. While Florida fruit has a lovely flavour the Star Ruby arriving from South Africa is hard to beat for presentation purposes.
Just to give an idea of the blush that is already available on apricots. They taste as good as they look! It is proving hard to convey the colour, let alone the sweetness, of this seedless watermelon. Heavy because of their juice content - superb!
evet family has been growers for more than seven generations and are an intricate part of the Paris Market, both on the current site and previously in Les Halles in the middle of the city. Their speciality now is in growing good quality aromatic herbs, both common and unusual, and also edible flowers. The farm consists of eight hectares of ground with a river running through it and over 2000m² of glasshouse. This allows them to produce their herbs from Spring until October. They have a respect fo
r nature and this is shown in the lack of chemicals used and the conservative way they use their water. The result is an interesting range of highly flavoured herbs, albeit a little varied in availability because of the artisanal nature of the business!The Staff Canteen team are taking a different approach to keeping our website independent and delivering content free from commercial influence. Our Editorial team have a critical role to play in informing and supporting our audience in a balanced way. We would never put up a paywall – The Staff Canteen is open to all and we want to keep bringing you the content you want; more from younger chefs, more on mental health, more tips and industry knowledge, more recipes and more videos. We need your support right now, more than ever, to keep The Staff Canteen active. Without your financial contributions this would not be possible.
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