There are some intriguing facets to the fresh fruit and vegetable industry when it comes to describing taste. After all, while shape and colour are important, taste is the most important aspect of the whole equation.
The problem is that whatever scientists come up with to quantify the conundrum - and the brix level is probably the best example - few can really explain just what terms such as “sweet” or “sour” really mean outside the privacy of their own individual palate.
Even simple descriptions such as “juicy”, first beloved by costermongers and barrow boys before they entered into the lexicography of the retailers’ marketeers, are open to debate.
Texture can also be included as part of the fresh produce armoury, but again there are few common denominators. There are customers who still select rock-hard pears, and others who like soft-fleshed apples where the crunch is not even an echo. And some citrus varieties are popular because their taste is comparatively bland.
To make matters even more complex, I’ve even heard growers claiming that the same varieties, be they citrus, grape, peach or plum, and which they have grown for generations, no longer taste the same.
Any attempt to wheedle out the reason why usually finishes up with debate on anything and everything from rootstocks, the change in climate, and of course the relative old and new approaches to the use of irrigation and sprays.
The one thing that is certain is that public tastes change, and change again. Berry fruit in all its forms is on the up. Even this week there has been comment on how that traditional hedgerow crop - the blackberry - is winning more and more plaudits, although I suggest this is mainly because excellent fruit is being commercially grown, which is far superior to and more consistent than anything that came out of the countryside; despite a pilgrimage which led to scratched hands and muddy boots.
A less obvious example is rhubarb, where the wheel has turned full circle and, over the last two to three years, the vegetable has regained its popularity, although production has changed little and the English industry is now confined to a “triangle” in Yorkshire applauded by a new generation of cookery writers.
Meanwhile, sensing a good thing coupled with added value, the multiples have been quick to follow suit by rediscovering products as varied as blue potatoes, white earthed-up celery, or historic apples and plums that had been consigned to national fruit collections.
Perhaps in less than a decade it will be tropical fruit ranges widening, following on from the headway first made by bananas, then fresh pineapple, then avocados, and now emulated by the choice of mangoes. After all, I remember the 1960s when melons were regarded as almost a luxury item.
There’s a whole old world, as well as a new one, still out there waiting to be discovered. Perhaps that’s the real magic behind the produce industry.
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