Produce News for March 9, 2009

PINK LADY APPLES (Monday, March 9): You have heard of Shakespeare’s Taming of the Shrew, right? Well, there is an apple in the apple section that needs to be tamed down. I’m not going to call it a shrew, but it has to mellow out. It’s right here - these beautiful pink lady apples. You know, when you first harvest a pink lady apple in October, maybe early November, they are, oh man! They have a bite to them. They, oh, you won’t want to eat them there’s such a bite to them. So what they do, they put them in cold storage. That’s right. They put them in cold storage, and this time of year, after about two and a half to three months, you know, 60-90 days, the apple, the little lady, has mellowed out and now this pink lady apple, oh my goodness, one of the best tasting apples you’re going to find right now. A true sweet tart apple. I’m so glad she mellowed out. Hey, if you tried the pink lady a few months ago and found it too tart, try it again. She’s mellowed out perfectly.

RADICCHIO (PART I) (Tuesday, March 10): Hey, you know last week was “Celebrate Your Name Week” and it’s always fun, you know, where did some varieties and where did some fruits and vegetables get their name? So it’s always fun to me, and take a look at radicchio. Get out your world atlas and go to Italy. You will find in Italy there is a province. We call them states here in the United States, but in Italy it is called a province. So find the province of Veneto. Now in Veneto you will find a valley called the Po valley. Now right here in the Po Valley you find all kinds of little tiny towns called Castle de Franco, and you will also find this variety of radicchio. It is called chiagio, and this is actually named after the town in which it originated – Chiagio, Italy in Veneto, and they are so careful to protect this variety. You know where they store the seeds of this variety in Veneto? Yeah, they still store them in the downtown vaults of the bank. That’s how important these seeds are.

RADICCHIO (PART II) (Wednesday, March 11): Here it is. Right here. These are the iceburg lettuce of Europe. That’s right. You go to Europe, Wester Europe, and you will find radicchio is one of the main ingredients to a lot of their salads, and it’s becoming a main ingredient to a lot of our salads. And good reason why...First of all, how do you pick out the best raddichio? When I go to the store…take a look at these two heads. This is very small. That means it has been trimmed and trimmed and trimmed and became smaller. So I always look for the larger heads. Those are going to be the fresher heads and the best tasting heads. Now when I get this home, I’m going to eat them very quickly. I’m not going to let them sit in my refrigerator for like a week or so because the sooner you eat them, the better flavor they have. The sweeter they’re going to be. You don’t need a lot. Just chop them up into your salads. What a fantastic color this brings to every salad whether it’s a romaine salad or an iceburg salad. Now, why is it so important in Europe to have radicchio? Because it’s one of the bitter greens and it helps you digest better. I love this in my salad.

GARLIC (Thursday, March 12): All right. Get out your U.S. map. Get out your U.S. atlas, and I want you to start looking at all the bit cities in the United States and try to figure out which one was named for garlic. Now I love garlic this time of year. This is all fantastic garlic. Look how white and bright that garlic is. That tells you it’s fresh. And when you pick it up…man, it actually weighs good. That means there’s good oil content in there. And when you give it a little squeeaze, there’s not a lot of squeeze room in there. That means it’s a good fresh head of garlic. So what city was named after garlic? Okay, the Indians in this region of upper midwest, they named this…can you guess yet? Chicagua. That’s right. That was the name of garlic by the Indians in this region. And that’s where we get the name Chicago. That’s right. It all started from the stinky rose in Chicago. Beautiful garlic.

BANANAS (Friday, March 13): I love, you know, talking about where some fruits and vegetables got their names. So I wondered a lot about bananas. That’s right. Where did banana get it’s name? Like was there a Mr. or Mrs. Banana somewhere? Was there a city or province named Banana somewhere. Actually, no, it has nothing to do with that. I want you to, first of all, get out your hand. That’s right. Get out your hand. There you go. When you look at your hand and you look at a banana…a bunch of bananas, they somewhat look alike. That’s right. In the produce industry we actually call this a hand of bananas. Right? So if this is a hand of bananas, then what is this? That’s right. It’s called a finger, and we actually in the produce industry call this a finger. And that’s where the word “banana” comes from. It’s an old Arabic word that means banan or finger. So we’re eating a bunch of fingers, finger bananas. And that’s how it got its name.