Comment by kstrauser
20 hours ago
That's so odd to me. You can buy cheap, cost-optimized fruit in the US. You can also buy amazing produce that would blow your mind. My wife and I look forward to our annual road trip to Monterey partly because of the fruit stands we pass along the way where we'll get cherries so dark they're nearly black, and strawberries the size of my fist (no, really, I have pictures) that are sweet as sugar and incredibly delicious.
The existence of Subway doesn't mean you can't get phenomenal deli sandwiches. It does mean you probably need to look around a little more and don't settle for the first sandwich place you see.
Edit: This is my wife holding one of those strawberries. We took that picture from the sheer absurdity of it. The pack of berries hardly survived the rest of the drive. We'd eaten almost all of them by the time we arrived at the B&B. https://share.icloud.com/photos/0ebgyxOMT9LpyjhfKuLQWD0kw
IME there is a large difference in quality in what is available at the super market. Sure I can do a once a year road trip to Monterey. The average organic heirloom tomato at Whole Foods or Trader Joe's is worse than the average organic heirloom tomato at Spar
There are also huge regional differences. When I interned one summer in the Bay Area I was stunned by the quality of the fruit available in California. I realized that, coming from Massachusetts, I had literally never experienced ripe versions of these things before (avocados stand out prominently in my mind).
That’s not to say that we can’t get amazing fruit in Massachusetts, but the selection is quite different. Apples, blueberries, raspberries, and cranberries are all fantastic. Oranges, peaches, sweet cherries, avocados, and many other things are mediocre at best. Getting great in-season fruit and produce is the primary reason why I now have a very large garden, but I need to temper my expectations even for some of the things I grow. Outside of a farmer’s market, this is the ONLY way to get a decent tomato in Massachusetts.
Agreed that fruit selection is very region-dependent. I grew up in the great lakes area - and we had super juicy peaches every summer. I have yet to find ONE peach in California in 20 years that measured up. Even when they're "ripe" and somewhat juicy, the texture is still rough/coarse and severely lacking in flavor.
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Maybe so, but I’d still think it’s more convenient to occasionally visit a local farmers market than to move to another continent.
Moving back to your home continent is easier than staying at a foreign continent though, so if the new continent was worse you of course leave and go back.
I was buying the "flavor-bombs" cherry-tomatoes-type varieties, they were the most expensive at like $6-ish per lbs, and even these had less flavor than the average cheap tomato in my native country during summer :D
> strawberries the size of my fist
No thanks. The most wonderful strawberries I ever tasted were wild ones picked on a disused Welsh railway line, probably a centimetre or so in size.
No doubt they were delicious - fruit picked while walking is always special.
But here in California, we have tremendous strawberries in our markets: Camarosa, Albion, Gaviota. Each is different in size, texture, flavor-profile.
I usually buy a "flat" of strawberries from the local farmer's market during peak season every weekend. They go in my oatmeal, my smoothies and in my lunches.
E.g: https://www.ocregister.com/2024/07/13/farmers-market-pops-up...
Not sure why you’re downvoted. The bigger the fruit the less sugars / nutrition it has per gram. A big reason why wild strawberries are so tasty is because theyre so small. I’ve had the fortune to forage for wild mountain strawberries in my native country in the balkans and their taste is nothing comparable to the farmed ones. Its like two different fruits. Once you try wild strawberries you will remember that experience forever
I’m glad we don’t have to decided between fat, bland berries and small, tasty ones. The fist-sized berry was as good as I’ve ever had anywhere.
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Subway (and McDonald's et al.) did run a bunch of local diners, restaurants, and cafeterias out of business, though. The ones that sold the middle ground between "optimized slop" and "bespoke actual food made by expensive chefs."
Strawberries are not the size of fists. Ever wonder what they put in those?
Perhaps you haven't had the pleasure of eating fresh-picked strawberries from Watsonville on your drive down PCH 1. Strawberries that are shipped across the US (Watsonville produces something like 40%) are picked under-ripe and will not sweeten more along the way.
Ripe, Watsonville farm-stand strawberries are something else entirely. They can indeed be fist sized. I encourage you to try them yourself.
Alternatively, you can go to pick your own places along the way - also fantastic.
Yep, those are the ones. Those Watsonville strawberries are to die for.
I've had a similar experience when shopping at a gas station store that bought produce from a local strawberry patch. Unfortunately, it was on a road trip.
They are in Japan.
There used to be an amazing upick organic strawberry farm just past La Selva. I saw exactly what they put in them. Eating huge strawberries perfectly ripe, picked a half hour ago from there was incredible.