Market report | From Wild Harvest | Chioggia beet

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This week's market report from Wild Harvest featuring crosnes, puntarella and candy aka chioggia beet as well as a whole host of other fruit and vegetables which you can see below:

Wild Mushrooms & Truffles

Organising the South African cep shipment

Lacking a truly consistent European cep option we switch to the Southern Hemisphere from Tuesday. Rather like the Scottish girolles, cep spores where introduced to South Africa on saplings with the early European settlers. The good news is South African worms haven’t worked out how tasty a treat the mushroom can be, and I have never seen any infestation from this part of the world. Aside from the mighty cep, here are some other truly wild options from our mushroom offering.

Girolles from Scotland and Russia cling on.
Yellow & grey legged chanterelle from Bulgaria.
Trompette from Bosnia.
Pied de mouton from Bulgaria & Scotland.
And a range of nice little rarities which we grab as the week goes on.

The Autumn truffle from Italy is still solid, & the whites have an excellent nose to sterling ratio.

Vegetables

We have let a few overpriced poorly formed shipments of crosnes go to our competition. I’m sorry fellow suppliers, but what are you doing reading this anyway? Wednesday is when we start with a direct supply line into this delicious root.

In Japan & China the tuber is pickled, which is something I’m going to dabble with this season. We start with puntarella (delicious, bitter, spiky Italian dandelion) this week. I can feel a salad of puntarella, pear and wood pigeon breasts with toasted pumpkin seeds is on the cards. Rare and ancient roots and brassicas such as the stunning (pictured) adult candy beet are in great shape. I won’t go on as last week I provided plenty of food for thought.

Fruits

Comice pears are now excellent. So much so that my colleague in purchasing has been seen eating fruit to supplement his instant noodle diet.

I am yet to find an apple I enjoy as much an English cox, and this season is looking hunky dory. Still grapes a plenty including the unsurpassable Muscat variety. Our plums are still good, although the variety diminishes now. Clementines are also surprisingly good for so early in the year.

Game

Pheasant supply is now in full force. Mallard sales have been strong, and it warms an old buyer’s heart to see that people are turning on to his favourite game bird. Sorry the wife, make that second favourite game bird.

Ambient Corner

We have added a black truffle oil to our range this week. In partnership with our suppliers of lovely golden cold pressed rapeseed oil Hill Farm, and containing English summer truffles we are so happy with the result that we have put our name on the bottles. From truffled mash to spiking a nice seasonal pumpkin soup, you will find a multitude of dishes can be enhanced by this truly British oil. As usual, this is just a small selection of what we have on offer. Call in on 020 7498 5397 to speak to the team about what other treats we have in store for you today.

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