Really want fruit but I don’t know what to get

  • FumpyAer [any, comrade/them]@hexbear.netEnglish
    8·
    8 days ago

    Designer apples like honeycrisp are really good and apples are in season. Keep in fridge. Sour apples like granny Smith are ideal for pies or just bake them sliced with sugar on top

    Pears are in season too, make sure they are deeply dentable with a finger before you eat so it’s juicy. Do not keep them in the fridge so they ripen properly.

    Pomegranate can be expensive but it’s in season rn

  • machiabelly [she/her]@hexbear.netEnglish
    6·
    7 days ago

    The biggs list

    Less dependent on season and location:

    • I love mandarins and other small oranges because they are easy to peel and don’t need to be washed. Ideal on the go fruit. I’ve found that when buying lunch at a deli/supermarket two mandarins will be as filling as chips for less money, while being healthier.

    • Pink lady apples, as well as whatever other local varieties you might have, are great. Smell the stem and butt to get a sense of flavor and ripeness. Fiji are good in a pinch. Apples are the perfect modern gmo fruit, as good from a supermarket as they are off the tree. Strain matters more than ripeness/freshness. Durable, last for a long time, especially in the fridge.

    • Dates are not only delicious but the best way to keep your blood sugar up before a workout. Medjool and Deglet are my favorites.

    • Grapes are wonderful, especially when chilled. There are a lot more varieties than people think, some that are more tart or sweet. I have never met a grape I didn’t like. Concords are great for Jams as well as just for something different. Any old grape will do just fine though.

    More dependent on season and location:

    • Watermelon are the most refreshing thing known to man.

    • Strawberries raspberries and blueberries fall into the, “delicious but too expensive for me to actually ever buy them.” If you can afford them or find them on sale/for cheap go for it.

    • Papaya are delectable and substantial. Odd smell that bothers some, but will go away after a while of eating them/being exposed to them.

    • Mangoes are probably more delicious than anything human will ever make on our own, my second favorite fruit.

    • Pineapples are freaking great, and super cheap frozen. My favorite smoothie fruit.

    • Plums/pluots are delicious when in season. pluots are similar in taste, perhaps not as perfect when 100% ripe, but much more durable and reliable.

    • Apricots, wonderful fruit that make my favorite type of jam.

    • Pears have all the refreshing finish of a grape with the substantial feeling of an apple. Divine texture when ripe. Don’t buy the brown ones though, I have never understood why they exist.

    Entirely dependent on season and location:

    • Guava, hard to find outside the tropics but make for my favorite flavor of fruit drinks. Buy POG (passion/orange/guava) juice if you see it.

    • Passion fruit, Delicious and perfect for topping a desert with. Very tart but not as much as a lemon.

    • I love blackberries but unless you are going to bake/jam them you need to go to a farmers market or pick them yourself. The ones from the store pale in comparison to the fresher stuff. Blackberry vines ripen super unevenly, so they are hard to pick en masse. I had a lot of blackberry vines near where I grew up, they were absolutely delicious, but would ripen over the course of a few months, even berries right next to each other, rather than all at once.

    • Peaches! Very sweet, their puree makes for wonderful cocktails

    • Lychees/momones/whatever other similar fruit. A large seed coated in a clear fruit flesh inside a neat red amoeba thing. Crack it open, chew around the seed, then spit it out. Super tasty. Sorta like a pineapple without the tang, but with a grape’s/watermelon’s refreshing finish.

    • Mangosteens are the tastiest fruit I’ve ever had the pleasure of meeting. Absurdly delicious. Unless you’re near where they are grown, avoid them. They don’t travel or keep well. You might find mangosteen drinks in Asian markets. Its been a long time since I had one but I remember them being roughly halfway between a lychee and a strawberry, with some orange and mango notes as well.

    • Persimmon are the sweetest fruit on this list, even sweeter than dates or peaches. They can only be found in a roughly 3-month period, but are delicious when ripe. Only eat them if they are barely holding together. Scoop the flesh out with a spoon and avoid eating the skin, mildly toxic. They are also super environmentally friendly. Very drought tolerant, need little fertilizer, perrenial, and are great at holding back desertification.

    Fruits that others like that I don’t: Dragon fruit, star fruit, grapefruit, gooseberry, marionberry. Pomegranate and kiwi are nice but too annoying to eat for my liking

    I love fruit dearly. They would comprise most of my diet if I could afford it.

    Note that I’m an American; so if you’re in the tropics finding good lychees will be as easy as finding good grapes, while finding good grapes will be extremely hard, good stone fruit almost impossible, and good blackberries actually impossible.

  • ChaosMaterialist [he/him]@hexbear.netEnglish
    5·
    8 days ago

    All the posted fruit is delicious and I recommend too. Adding to the list, lemons and limes are great for adding some flavor to water and other drinks, and often can be cooked with other foods like fish. I always keep a few around.

  • HarryLime [any]@hexbear.netEnglish
    5·
    8 days ago

    Apples are pretty filling. Fuji apples are the best kind.

    I buy containers of cut watermelon and mango and cantaloupe and snack on them.

  • came_apart_at_Kmart [he/him, comrade/them]@hexbear.netEnglish
    4·
    8 days ago

    i went through a apple phase. great morning food, all the chewing wakes your face up, lots of plant fiber, kinda sweet/kinda tart, exciting. filling. just don’t get golden delicious, it’s sawdust. i like honeycrisp when i can find it, fiji and granny smith.

    but i would go with whatever is in season around you. support those people who are stewarding perennials around you now so that there may be local perennials in the future. also it takes a lot of fossil fuels to get non-local produce to be even in the same ballpark of fresh as nearby. keeps way longer in the fridge or on the shelf too and maybe you’ll find somebody growing some cultivar that is unique to your place.

    • machiabelly [she/her]@hexbear.netEnglish
      1·
      7 days ago

      The fertilizers and water are a much bigger climactic impact than transportation. Based on what I’ve learned its more environmental to ship food from far away where it grows easily than to grow them in areas where its more difficult. A farmer growing rice in vietnam will use way less water than one in California, while pineapples from the tropics create a much greater volume of fruit with less fertalizer, I think, than berries grown in temparate conditions. Favoring perennials is a great point though, and so is buying from farmers markets. Most farmers selling at markets using much more sustainable practices than those selling to supermarkets. This is because the more sustainable practices lead to better taste.

      • came_apart_at_Kmart [he/him, comrade/them]@hexbear.netEnglish
        2·
        7 days ago

        there is a massive difference in transporting rice and transporting fresh produce, like say a specific fruit that has specific temperature and humidity requirements and cannot exist in the same transportion space as other fruits which will release ethylene leading to overripening. which doesn’t even touch the angle of lack of transparency for environmental practices and workers conditions in lengthy supply chains.

        america does a shitload of agriculture wrong and wasteful compared to the developing world because we have an entire finance and credit system that encourages production systems which use luxury amounts of resources and fossil fuels that would be reduced under an agricultural system no longer organized to turn growers into customers of chemical companies.

        the entire “but it’s cheaper/easier/more economical to import from the developing world than grow it here” is one of those ag 101 talking points that has been around since colonialism and is used to divert attention from resistance to anti-globalization movements, indigenous food sovereignty movements and the constant stream of data showing that most people on the planet eat most efficiently from smaller diversified farms near them. the anomaly is the western model of conquering faraway places and turning these communities into vast plantations for export. that is what is environmentally unsound and decouples communities from their lands and their culture/foodways, introducing malnutrition, poverty, metabolic disorders, etc.

        but the indoctrination machine loves to say “you grow butter better than me and I make guns better than you, so we all benefit by you selling me your butter for my guns”. they often lean heavily on comparisons that are completely inappropriate. like rice in Vietnam and apples in the US. or cashews in Ghana and almonds in California. or lobster in Maine and everything everyone is eating in Las Vegas.

  • propter_hog [any, any]@hexbear.netEnglish
    4·
    8 days ago

    Apples are a staple in my house. Always have a tray full of them. Makes me happy to see the kid go to the kitchen for a snack and she comes back with an apple.