Market Report - UK seasonal update 6 July 2015

This week's market report from Wild Harvest features flat peaches, marsh samphire and red gooseberries as well as a whole host of other fruit and vegetables currently in season which you can see below:

Wild Mushrooms

Girolles are plentiful, as you would expect in July. Both mini and medium sized specimens are coming from the Balkans still. The right conditions in the Baltics are required to drive prices down and quality up to season peak.

The magnificent Scottish girolle could pop up in harvestable quantities any day now. The fungal spores for this variety where imported along with sapling stocks.

In Caledonia the queen of mushrooms found a perfect host, and a properly harvested and transported Scottish girolle is one of The World’s finest things to behold and consume. Sliced cep from Romania provide the only fresh summer cep option without fear of infestation.

Truffles

As with most years the summer truffle season brings abundance and affordability. If the natural subtle aroma of what in Latin is called Tuber Aestivum isn’t enough for your dish, we hold a wide range of truffle flavour boosters.

If you’d like a rustic, high spec, dedicated truffle slicer to slice your tubers at the table, we also sell nice wooden handled tools.

Enough of our range here’s a quote related to subterranean fungi:

"There are two types of people who eat truffles: those who think truffles are good because they are dear and those who know they are dear because they are good."
J.L. Vaudoyer

Fruits

The great British strawberry is in good form, and has quite rightly slackened demand on the French Gariguette.

Here’s some strawberry trivia:

Fragrant - The strawberry belongs to the genus Fragraria in the rose family.The name of the scientific classification was derived from the Old Latin word for fragrant. The modern Italian word for strawberry is still "Fragola".

To complement this fragrant Summer mainstay we are also selling strasberries, white pineberries, wild strawberries and the delicious wild strawberry cross breed known as the mara des bois.

Here’s a crude list of other summer fruits doing very well for themselves:

• Tomato varieties galore


• White and red cherries


• Red and green gooseberries


• White, yellow and flat peaches


• White and yellow nectarines


• Apricots

Vegetables

Marsh samphire is now cultivated successfully year round. We often give the wild crop a wide berth as the stems can be woody if not picked in their prime. Right now the crop is being picked at it’s best in the wild, and we are happy to supplement our wild offering with it’s succulent, saline, verdant presence.

Corn on the cob in it’s sheath has hit the market from Spain. We’ll make a bigger splash when the British crop is harvested in a meaningful way.

The sprint from field to plate with sweetcorn is even more significant than with other crops, as the moment it’s picked sugars start to convert into starch.

As with fruits above, here are some bullet pointed veggie bad boys in brazenly brilliant form:

• Purple, yellow and romanesco cauliflowers


• Baby candy, yellow and purple beet


• Borlotti beans in the pod


• Broad beans and peas are now coming from this green and pleasant land


• Wild sea aster


• Multi-coloured radishes

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