Market Report Sponsorsed by Oakleaf European Newsletter #18

Fruit and Mushroom with Robin

Wild mushrooms are becoming a little harder either with availability or with the quality that arrives! The plus side is that Chinese truffles have now joined Burgundy and white Alba and we should be supplying Perigord before the next newsletter!
We are moving further into the winter fruit now and this includes the arrivals of oranges, kiwi, Corsican clementine, more varieties of apples and stone fruit from Australia. Green Hayward kiwi and the slightly sweeter Summerkiwi® from France, yellow organic kiwi and popular Gold Kiwi from Italy.
We can now offer Spanish Navel oranges, but although the Salustiana juicing orange also appeared this week, the acidity is to high still to warrant a change from Southern Hemisphere fruit.
Small tray Primofiori lemons are back and the packaging of only twenty to a tray can really help some people with storage problems.
Goldrush apples are here. A freckled, blush skin with a sweet crunchy flesh.

Vegetable and Salad with Matthieu

This week will see the last day we supply baby leaf from our grower in Fontainebleau. Baby watercress will be the only product we are not able to replace, apart from that the rest of our baby leaf range will be kept but from different suppliers such as BOLE and Riez, and areas like Nice and Italy for the wild Roquette which already started this week. Our "Mesclun Superior" will be replaced by the mesclun "Japonais" composing of Mizuna, Tatsoi, Mustard, Pacshoi, red chard and baby Batavia; definitely our favourite mesclun of the year. Our mix baby leaf will be replaced by another mesclun called the "Nicois" which consists of young leaves of red oakleaf, green oakleaf, Tango, Batavia, red Batavia, cos lettuce, wild roquette, red chard and baby spinach. It will be our fourth season of using this baby leaf grower based on the French Riviera near Nice and the only thing we can guarantee is the quality of his products are favourable to our grower in Fontainebleau - or even better some will say!
Spinach is now coming from Provence too, as especially large leaf is grown in this area.
We have seen this week the first Spanish pointed artichokes, purple and green and some lovely baby violet chokes from Italy.
The last offerings of the season of Coco Paimpol - the beans inside are fine, even if the pods are starting to show some mould.
We saw the first peas in pods coming from Spain - a bit pricey and not worthy of a spot on our prices list quite yet.

New Products with Jon

This week saw the start of the Pyrenean milk-fed lamb season; we will be working with the Axuria label again this year with which we had great success and feed back last season. Working as a co-operative of some 350 farmers, Axuria set and maintains the price at the beginning of the season, with a maximum of 50,000 carcasses produced for market from November to May.
Giving birth to the lambs in the region of the Pays Basque, lambs suckle only on their mother's milk, giving the meat its unique sweet taste. Due to the use of the ewe's milk for local cheese, the Axuria lambs are weaned early. They are brought down from the mountain and slaughtered within 45 days of their birth giving a carcase of approx 10 kg. The lambs are fully traceable to source and carry the highly prised "Label Rouge "mark to ensure you receive the authentic product.

This year we are offering the same cuts as last season...
Whole carcase - muslin wrapped
Shoulder - vac-packed
Rack with Loin-vac-packed
Rack - vac-packed
Gigot (hind legs) vac-packed