Fresh Fruit

Roadside stands

Like fresh vegetables, the best fruit is available from roadside stands where it is usually harvested daily. The taste of true freshness cannot be compared to anything else. The taste of fresh fruit comes alive in your mouth and you can enjoy the exquisite mingling of flavors and experiences.

Fresh Fruit Buying Tips

Supermarket fresh fruit displays hold fruit products raised in the U.S. or imported from other countries, mostly South America depending upon the season of the year. No matter the supplier, their will be regional taste differences since the fruit will have been raised in different soils, under a wide variety of conditions and blossoms fertilized by a variety of bees. Look for shelving that is clean and cooled.

When choosing fruit, it’s a touch-feel-smell game. You have to touch the fruit and test it for firmness. Granted, not all the fruit is sold in a ripened state, but a lot of the stuff in the shelf will already have ripened. Select fruit slightly under ripe with firm unbruised skins.

Oranges will have a color the looks bright. A little green may not matter depending upon the variety. Strawberries must be inspected because the fruit always looks better on top. Each box could contain spoiled fruit underneath. Once a particular fruit spoils, the spoilage transfers to other fruit in the package. The spoiled fruit may have white fuzz or mold growing on it.

Use your nose to smell. Fruit should smell like fruit and nothing else. A piece of fruit that is too ripe will smell too sweet, as the sugars in the fruit become more intense as it ages. If any odor seems strange to you, discard the fruit and go onto another. This is not to say that you’ll have to sniff all the fruit on the shelf, but one or two should be indicators enough for you to make an informed decision about freshness.

Storing

Citrus fruit should be stored at room temperature, but must be consumed quickly within a week. Make sure that you cull out spoiled fruit to prevent the spoilage from transferring to other pieces. Fruit will keep in your refrigerator’s crisper for six to eight weeks. Make sure you check it once a week to cull out the spoilage.

Where to buy fresh fruit online

• Hale Groves

• Harry and David

• Tropical Fruit Shop

• Cherry Moon Farms

• Patterson Fruit Farm

• Columbia Gorge