Food you can no longer find

[Pepper Pig]

Nigella’s recipe of the day features whitecurrants as the garnish. It’s from her Domestic Goddess book and she has edited her comments to say that you no longer see whitecurrants anywhere.

Anybody?

[Suffs]

Occasionally … mainly in farm shops … or there used to be a cottage garden gate where they’d appear each year if you timed your visits right … think the elderly couple who grew them are no more … the cottage has been sold and done up. Shame … I used to get quinces there too.

I have seen them in the past couple of years on on a very good fruit and veg stall in Norwich market. If you want to be fairly certain if getting some it’s best to grow them yourself. They are very seasonal. If you have one bush you’ll have white currants for one week a year … if you’re lucky and if the blackbirds leave you some.

[herbidacious]

In my garden…. They do better than redcurrants. Perhaps less visible.

[Stokey Sue]

I have a feeling a stall in our farmers market sometimes has them.

My dad planted a bipush, but we never knew what to do with them except use them to make up the weight of blackcurrants or redcurrants.

I

[scullion]

as they're the same family as redcurrants (but not blackcurrants) i would imagine they could be used in strawberry jam to increase the pectin content for a better set (see ian in france's recipe).
i'm sure i saw some for sale a few weeks ago.

[Earthmaiden]

Gone the way of many cottage garden fruits which have not been taken up by the big supermarkets to be grown abroad or here.

Unless you grow them or have access to a market you rarely see white or redcurrants, blackcurrants, gooseberries, a wide variety of apples ...... very sad.

There seem to be an awful lot of cultivated blackberries in supermarkets this year. There only used to be a few.

[Badger's Mate]

a wide variety of apples

I think UK-grown apples comprise less than half of UK sales of apples, although whether small-scale growers report their sales in a way that is incorporated into the statistics, I don’t know.

Apparently, the most popular fruit in the UK (by weight sold) are bananas, citrus, grapes, melons & apples, with bananas clearly topping the list. The order of the others depends on whether you lump all the citrus together and whether or not you include dried fruit, which affects the ranking for grapes. The figures don’t include wine or cider production.

https://www.statista.com/statistics/712 ... nsumption/

All the other soft fruit and stone fruit put together would come somewhere around the amount of apples, or citrus or grapes sold.
Gooseberries are rarely seen for sale, but dessert gooseberries even less so. I suppose it’s a vicious circle, if you don’t see it you don’t buy it. If you don’t buy it, they don’t stock it.

Interestingly, the most popular fruits according to how much people like them are a slightly different list,

https://yougov.co.uk/ratings/consumer/p ... fruits/all

It’s still bad news for British growers and UK food security though, isn’t it?

[Earthmaiden]

Interesting. I suspect that ease of harvesting comes into it. Also, the fact that people don't bottle, preserve or make puddings for everyday consumption any more due to the demise of the housewife, ease of buying frozen and health concerns.

There always seem to be a lot of sour redcurrants in bags of frozen berries.

Some of those lesser known apples on trees in rural gardens are so nice.

[scullion]

i ate a handful of redcurrants from a bush as i walked down the steps this morning. i love their tartness.

[KeenCook]

Some of those lesser known apples on trees in rural gardens are so nice.

Yes, EM, they really are. I grew up with several apple varieties in our garden (not rural, just Walton on Thames, in Surrey). Cox, James Grieve and Russett are the ones I remember.
Some years ago I planted a James Grieve in our little garden here - I had to research which apples are self-pollinating as no guarantee of a partner tree round here.
About 3 years ago I had a single apple! It tasted magnificent

In the intervening years none, a couple of years ago there weren't even any flowers, so no chance of any apples; last year they all fell off almost as soon as they had formed, possibly lack of water as it was very dry.

This year, the tree has turned into a weeping tree, has 19 apples on it atm ... I'm hoping to at least harvest half a dozen or so!
Because it isn't upright, it means I'll easily be able to pick them ...

[Badger's Mate]

I notice that no obviously British varieties were listed in the You Gov survey, which makes me think that the survey presented the public with a list, rather than asked generally what fruit people like.

[Busybee]

We are having a bumper apple harvest this year - OH has processed 4kg this morning with a similar weight of plums yesterday. The freezer is filling up nicely. There will be more to harvest shortly.

We have a Worcester permain tree - delicious, and a bramley apple that it technically our neighbours but enough overhangs our garden to keep us going through winter. The plums are a Victoria. I know that we all moan that we haven’t had much of a summer but we have had a fabulous year in the garden for fruit, strawberries, raspberries, gooseberries, rhubarb, blackberries, apples and plums.

A really prolific year.

BB

[Seatallan]

I agree BB. It's the best raspberry year we've ever had.

[Earthmaiden]

Good to hear that the fruit people grow has been prolific.

You Gov survey, which makes me think that the survey presented the public with a list, rather than asked generally what fruit people like.

It's looks as though there was a list for people to tick if they liked the fruit. I suspect they could only tick a certain number too. I like them all, dates least. I've never eaten a fresh date.