Wild Harvest | Market report

This week's market report from Wild Harvest features Venezuelan mangoes, Gariguette strawberries and English green asparagus as well as a whole host of other fruit and vegetables currently in season which you can see below:

Wild Mushrooms & Truffles

The mighty Turkish morel is the pick of the wild mushroom bunch. Other varieties have either finished or represent terrible value for money.

I have been in contact with our Bulgarian wild mushroom sources. Conditions are looking good in their strange microclimate for mousseron and St Georges mushrooms to arrive in around two weeks time. True signs of Spring these two. My omelet pan is at the ready for a mousseron laden lunch. Spring white truffles are in excellent condition, but in the absence of black truffles of any calibre, demand is outstripping supply. The official start date of the summer truffle season is the 1st of May, but we will start earlier than that. In the meantime we have the goods to do as us humans have been doing for centuries and offer preserved wild mushrooms and truffles.

Fruits

With citrus and top fruit tiring now, it’s good to see some new additions.

The delicious Venezuelan mango is in full swing. A Venezuelan friend of mine won’t be pleased with me, but the only mango to surpass her country’s crop should hit our shores anytime now. The Indian alphonso mango season is also about to kick off. According to the BBC the fun spoiling two season ban imposed last year due to fruit fly infestation is to be lifted early due to improved standards. The first decent strawberry of the year from the South of France

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is now readily available in 250g punnets, and prices will drop very soon. We are a month or so off really opening up our already varied tomato range to match the weather.

Other fruits of note:

Finger limes
Lemons from Nice & Southern Italy
Blood oranges
Clementines
Quince
Kaki

And an extensive range of common place, exotic and preserved fruit products.

Vegetables:

The official English asparagus season is from the 23rd of April until the 21st of June. If you don’t believe me look here. That said asparagus is too good not to stretch the rules a little. Our favoured grower the Chinn family have land in a sheltered part of the Wye Valley and just need a little more sunshine to provide quantity of any note and drive prices down. English Green Asparagus

This innovative family also produce purple and English white asparagus (almost unheard of) as well as a second bite of the seasonal apple with a mini season kicking off in September and running into October. At the moment it’s a goalmouth scramble for product, but as this is a bi-weekly newsletter I thought I’d get the interest going.

Other vegetables of merit:

Wild garlic
Yorkshire Triangle forced rhubarb
Excellent champagne rhubarb from the Wye Valley
Monks beard
Fresh peas and broad beans
Wet garlic
Jersey royal spuds
The re-start of wild sea beet
A baby vegetable range to suit delicate spring menus

And much more than the average attention span could handle. 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. Visit the website here

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