This week's market report from Wild Harvest features white truffles, blood oranges and castelfranco as well as a whole host of other fruit and vegetables currently in season which you can see below:
White Truffles
Wild Mushrooms & Truffles
White truffles continue. It’s been a smooth, dependable season. Little by way of price/quality/availability fluctuation to report.
Just a lovely, wild luxury item which will go into a less fruitful part of its life cycle in a week or two.
Winter truffles are in good supply from both Italy and the Perigord region of South West France.
January will bring real stinky maturity.
It’s tough on the wild mushroom front. Using frozen, dried or exotic cultivated mushrooms would not make you a bad person at the end of the year.
We need Portugal to kick in with volumes to provide value, variety and quality. This could happen any day now weather permitting.
Here’s what’s about:
Pied de mouton from Spain
Chanterelle gris and jaune from France, Spain and Portugal
Trompette from Turkey
Blood Oranges
Fruits
We are buying blood oranges now for the office to track the ruddiness.
Coming from Spain and Italy this Wild Harvest favourite has a raspberry aspect to its flavour profile.
The red pigment is generated by cool nights, hence the peak eating being in late January.
Everyone’s busier than they care to be, so here’s a list of just some fruity thrivers.
which make a fantastic ice cream as well as the timeless marmalade.
My dear mother in law enjoys marmalade so much that irrespective of how heavy the full English breakfast is, you can spot her securing a slice of toast and honing in on a jar of this beautifully balanced preserve long before the last rasher of bacon has been accounted for.
Vegetables
For those like me (and most of Italy) that appreciate bitter flavours, December brings great produce.
The chicory or endive group thrives in the colder months.
Puntarella and radicchio tardivo (the late elegant form of the crop) are in great shape from this family.
Castelfranco adds a Jackson Pollock note to your plate. I love it paired with blood oranges, walnuts and culatello in a winter salad.
As with the fruits above here are just a few bullet pointed vegetable beauties.
Crosnes
The humble yet magnificent January king cabbage
Oca, capucine & yacon tubers
Jerusalem artichokes
Purple kohlrabi (German composite word fusing cabbage & turnip)
Multi-coloured chantenay carrots
Rainbow chard
Romanesco for Christmas tree mimicry
Eyes will be peeled for the awesome Yorkshire triangle rhubarb when our heads pop out into 2017. I may dust off my 'night soil' story.
The warmest seasonal greetings to one and all from Wild Harvest’s premises on South London’s New Covent Garden Market.
Call in on 020 7498 5397 to speak to the team about what other treats we have in store for you today. Visit the website here.
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