4 ms·

Makes me wonder about which great fruit or vegetables I've missed out on my whole life simply because they were unknown and badly marketed. A recent one would

Makes me wonder about which great fruit or vegetables I've missed out on my whole life simply because they were unknown and badly marketed. A recent one would maybe be Kale, which has become dramatically popular in the last 10 years.

shalmanese 12y ago
The passionfruit is virtually unknown in America despite being huge in many places around the world. Hawaii and California have the perfect climate for growing them and preserved passionfruit products make some appearance in American recipes but you virtually never see the fresh fruit for sale anywhere. I predict it's going to have a meteoric rise sometime in the next few years, it's got everything going for it.
ghaff 12y ago
Pomegranates have increased in popularity recently although they're still very seasonal and fairly expensive in pure form (or even as 100% juice). My perception is that cranberries have also expanded beyond their home territories although they're still seasonal as well. (Don't really understand why you can't buy them frozen as they freeze quite well--something I do every fall.) There are a bunch of tropical fruits that could potentially fall into this category as well but they're mostly too expensive for the broad market so it probably doesn't make sense to market them more.
- dghughes 12y ago
  > and fairly expensive in pure form (or even as 100% juice) $13.00 for 1 litre Pom brand here in my region of SE Canada. I bought some on sale yesterday for $7.99 I think the big jump in price due to demand after studies may have shown pomegranate juice may have properties which reduces arterial plaque, may! http://i.imgur.com/OPTogVl.jpg?1 http://i.imgur.com/OPTogVl.jpg?1 And oddly enough I also bought some avocados for the first time ever too.
- jonah 12y ago
  Another commenter's mention of shipability is one of the keys. Due to the long supply-chains for modern produce, the fruit or veggie has to be picked early, ripen off the vine and stay firm to hold up to shipping. cf. Grocery store tomatoes, etc. My father is involved with developing the PawPaw (Asimina Triloba) into a commercially viable fruit. It's amazing - as big as your fist with a few black seeds and creamy flesh which tastes like custard. Problem is it doesn't ripen off the tree well and bruises easily in shipping. Various universities have breeding programs and there are some excellent named varieties now but still not quite to a place where they could be commercialized on a broad scale. Another issue is of course people don't like things they're not used to and are generally reluctant to experiment with new foods. (Generalized to the US.) One way to overcome that is through marketing campaigns. Federal Marketing Orders are what we have in place to do this.[1][2] [0] http://www.pawpaw.kysu.edu/ http://www.pawpaw.kysu.edu/ https://www.hort.purdue.edu/newcrop/cropfactsheets/pawpaw.html https://www.hort.purdue.edu/newcrop/cropfactsheets/pawpaw.ht... etc. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marketing_orders_and_agreements https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marketing_orders_and_agreement... [2] http://www.ams.usda.gov/AMSv1.0/FVMarketingOrderLandingPage http://www.ams.usda.gov/AMSv1.0/FVMarketingOrderLandingPage (Also, frozen cranberries are generally available - but often seasonally because in popular cooking they're limited to Thanksgiving relish and the like...)
  - ghaff 12y ago
    >frozen cranberries are generally available Interesting. I've never seen them. Probably because they're available fresh in season in New England where I live and, as you say, they're typically viewed as a seasonal berry.
  - markdown 12y ago
    Interesting. In my part of the world, a pawpaw is what you call a papaya.
    - jonah 12y ago
      I hadn't heard that. Wild, in the US they're totally different fruit: PawPaw: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asimina_triloba https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asimina_triloba Papaya: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Papaya https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Papaya
- tracker1 12y ago
  As someone allergic to cranberries (sensitive to blueberries and wintergreen too), it baffles me a little bit how popular they are now. You can't really find a pre-mixed fruit-nut blend that doesn't have them. They're in a lot of salads at restaurants. The worst was when I found out a BBQ sauce at a local placed used cranberry juice for the tanginess, which actually tasted really good, the three days of hives wasn't so good. It's really not as bad as a lot of other people with allergies have to deal with. I know someone severely allergic to soy. That would be the hardest thing to deal with. I bring this up because I've been using frozen berries for a morning protein smoothie, and recall seeing cranberries, which again, I avoid.
- vacri 12y ago
  I had a curious salad recently, whose signature ingredients were pomegranate seeds and mint peas. I wouldn't eat it every day, but it was interesting.
jballanc 12y ago
It doesn't even have to be about good or bad marketing, but just how something is marketed and/or commonly used. Take, for example, celery. You're probably used to seeing it like this: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/44/Céleri.jpg http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/44/Céleri.jp... right? Well around here they're sold like this: http://www.varbak.com/galeri/kereviz-b3194.jpg http://www.varbak.com/galeri/kereviz-b3194.jpg . The flavor of the root is far more intense as well, and makes for a really great soup or stew.
- Symbiote 12y ago
  That's called celeriac in English. It's not common, but there should be a few bulbs in a British shop with a decent range of vegetables. http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Celeriac http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Celeriac
- mturmon 12y ago
  It's often called "Celery Root" in the U.S. It's commonly available.
  - tracker1 12y ago
    I just wish it wasn't so overpriced.. I make a puree of celery root, cauliflower and a small potato instead of just potatoes. The extra fiber offsets the glycemic index/load... the little bit of potato gives it the familiar flavor. The only people who've tried it that didn't like it don't like cauliflower and celery.
jpatokal 12y ago
Mangosteens! Good, fresh ones are spectacular. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Purple_mangosteen https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Purple_mangosteen Unfortunately they keep really badly and insects love them, so imports are banned in much of the world. The name also doesn't help, as they have nothing to do with mangoes.
moultano 12y ago
Pawpaws! If you live anywhere south of New York and East of Kansas, this September, walk into the woods, find a tree that looks like this: https://www.google.com/search?q=paw+paw+tree&tbm=isch https://www.google.com/search?q=paw+paw+tree&tbm=isch shake it, and eat the fruit that comes out. It tastes like a pina colada! (Or if you are familiar, a custard apple or sitaphal) They are huge unmistakable fruits. I grew up in Ohio, spent lots of time in the woods, and that entire time, nobody told me that every third tree in the woods had tropical tasting huge fruits in it! My friends were blown away when on a trip home, I could walk off trail in a city park, shake a tree and come back with a delicious fruit they'd never seen before. The only member of their genus to grow outside the tropics, and they are endemic to the US, but nobody knows about them! They have a wonderful flavor but the shelf life is a day or so, so they've never been industrialized. It's amazing just how common they are. Once I knew what they were I would see them every 20 feet whenever I went hiking.

shalmanese 12y ago

The passionfruit is virtually unknown in America despite being huge in many places around the world. Hawaii and California have the perfect climate for growing them and preserved passionfruit products make some appearance in American recipes but you virtually never see the fresh fruit for sale anywhere. I predict it's going to have a meteoric rise sometime in the next few years, it's got everything going for it.

ghaff 12y ago

Pomegranates have increased in popularity recently although they're still very seasonal and fairly expensive in pure form (or even as 100% juice). My perception is that cranberries have also expanded beyond their home territories although they're still seasonal as well. (Don't really understand why you can't buy them frozen as they freeze quite well--something I do every fall.) There are a bunch of tropical fruits that could potentially fall into this category as well but they're mostly too expensive for the broad market so it probably doesn't make sense to market them more.

dghughes 12y ago
> and fairly expensive in pure form (or even as 100% juice) $13.00 for 1 litre Pom brand here in my region of SE Canada. I bought some on sale yesterday for $7.99 I think the big jump in price due to demand after studies may have shown pomegranate juice may have properties which reduces arterial plaque, may! http://i.imgur.com/OPTogVl.jpg?1 http://i.imgur.com/OPTogVl.jpg?1 And oddly enough I also bought some avocados for the first time ever too.
jonah 12y ago
Another commenter's mention of shipability is one of the keys. Due to the long supply-chains for modern produce, the fruit or veggie has to be picked early, ripen off the vine and stay firm to hold up to shipping. cf. Grocery store tomatoes, etc. My father is involved with developing the PawPaw (Asimina Triloba) into a commercially viable fruit. It's amazing - as big as your fist with a few black seeds and creamy flesh which tastes like custard. Problem is it doesn't ripen off the tree well and bruises easily in shipping. Various universities have breeding programs and there are some excellent named varieties now but still not quite to a place where they could be commercialized on a broad scale. Another issue is of course people don't like things they're not used to and are generally reluctant to experiment with new foods. (Generalized to the US.) One way to overcome that is through marketing campaigns. Federal Marketing Orders are what we have in place to do this.[1][2] [0] http://www.pawpaw.kysu.edu/ http://www.pawpaw.kysu.edu/ https://www.hort.purdue.edu/newcrop/cropfactsheets/pawpaw.html https://www.hort.purdue.edu/newcrop/cropfactsheets/pawpaw.ht... etc. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marketing_orders_and_agreements https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marketing_orders_and_agreement... [2] http://www.ams.usda.gov/AMSv1.0/FVMarketingOrderLandingPage http://www.ams.usda.gov/AMSv1.0/FVMarketingOrderLandingPage (Also, frozen cranberries are generally available - but often seasonally because in popular cooking they're limited to Thanksgiving relish and the like...)
- ghaff 12y ago
  >frozen cranberries are generally available Interesting. I've never seen them. Probably because they're available fresh in season in New England where I live and, as you say, they're typically viewed as a seasonal berry.
- markdown 12y ago
  Interesting. In my part of the world, a pawpaw is what you call a papaya.
  - jonah 12y ago
    I hadn't heard that. Wild, in the US they're totally different fruit: PawPaw: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asimina_triloba https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asimina_triloba Papaya: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Papaya https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Papaya
tracker1 12y ago
As someone allergic to cranberries (sensitive to blueberries and wintergreen too), it baffles me a little bit how popular they are now. You can't really find a pre-mixed fruit-nut blend that doesn't have them. They're in a lot of salads at restaurants. The worst was when I found out a BBQ sauce at a local placed used cranberry juice for the tanginess, which actually tasted really good, the three days of hives wasn't so good. It's really not as bad as a lot of other people with allergies have to deal with. I know someone severely allergic to soy. That would be the hardest thing to deal with. I bring this up because I've been using frozen berries for a morning protein smoothie, and recall seeing cranberries, which again, I avoid.
vacri 12y ago
I had a curious salad recently, whose signature ingredients were pomegranate seeds and mint peas. I wouldn't eat it every day, but it was interesting.

jballanc 12y ago

It doesn't even have to be about good or bad marketing, but just how something is marketed and/or commonly used. Take, for example, celery. You're probably used to seeing it like this: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/44/Céleri.jpg http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/44/Céleri.jp... right? Well around here they're sold like this: http://www.varbak.com/galeri/kereviz-b3194.jpg http://www.varbak.com/galeri/kereviz-b3194.jpg . The flavor of the root is far more intense as well, and makes for a really great soup or stew.

Symbiote 12y ago
That's called celeriac in English. It's not common, but there should be a few bulbs in a British shop with a decent range of vegetables. http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Celeriac http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Celeriac
mturmon 12y ago
It's often called "Celery Root" in the U.S. It's commonly available.
- tracker1 12y ago
  I just wish it wasn't so overpriced.. I make a puree of celery root, cauliflower and a small potato instead of just potatoes. The extra fiber offsets the glycemic index/load... the little bit of potato gives it the familiar flavor. The only people who've tried it that didn't like it don't like cauliflower and celery.

jpatokal 12y ago

Mangosteens! Good, fresh ones are spectacular. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Purple_mangosteen https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Purple_mangosteen Unfortunately they keep really badly and insects love them, so imports are banned in much of the world. The name also doesn't help, as they have nothing to do with mangoes.

moultano 12y ago

Pawpaws! If you live anywhere south of New York and East of Kansas, this September, walk into the woods, find a tree that looks like this: https://www.google.com/search?q=paw+paw+tree&tbm=isch https://www.google.com/search?q=paw+paw+tree&tbm=isch shake it, and eat the fruit that comes out. It tastes like a pina colada! (Or if you are familiar, a custard apple or sitaphal) They are huge unmistakable fruits. I grew up in Ohio, spent lots of time in the woods, and that entire time, nobody told me that every third tree in the woods had tropical tasting huge fruits in it! My friends were blown away when on a trip home, I could walk off trail in a city park, shake a tree and come back with a delicious fruit they'd never seen before. The only member of their genus to grow outside the tropics, and they are endemic to the US, but nobody knows about them! They have a wonderful flavor but the shelf life is a day or so, so they've never been industrialized. It's amazing just how common they are. Once I knew what they were I would see them every 20 feet whenever I went hiking.