fruit notes
We introduced Nathaniel Brown of Brown Sugar Farm this weekend here in an email and now we’re eating – might we say – some of the BEST Owari satsuma mandarins we’ve had?! Working on the western side of their humble 4 acre citrus orchard nestled in the Sierra Foothills, Nathaniel worked hard to carefully harvest mandarins for us through less than ideal weather and muddy grounds. I’ve had this theory that mandarins taste better the further north you go, and some of the tastiest ones are grown in the Foothills. With mild warm days paired with cool nights throughout the growing season, the sugars have time to develop and the flavor becomes extremely complex. Satsumas have become so popular in the commercial market now that it’s unfortunately common to find mediocre flavored ones. These are the opposite: thin skinned, freshly harvested, and so flavorful. Though they run a bit smaller, they’re packed with BIG flavor. Store on the counter. Grown sustainably by Brown Sugar Farm in Newcastle.
For those of you who were in the fruity fan club this time last year, we brought in these wildly delicious and instant-cult-status Tahitian pomelos grown on the southern end of the San Joaquin valley. Pomelos are a type of citrus native to Southeast Asia, like a larger, less bitter, and juicier grapefruit! They are typically filled with a bajillion seeds. The crew at Murray Family Farms laboriously nets each individual pomelo blossom to prevent the pollination that creates seeds, resulting in a big ol’ beautiful pomelo that has itty bitty to nearly no seeds. Netting whole trees or even rows of trees is common in growing seedless mandarins and pomelos, but netting each individual pomelo is the only way to ensure that each fruit isn’t pollinated. They’ve been practicing this technique for nearly a decade and the result is pretty magnificent. The flesh of Tahitian pomelos is floral, juicy, and kinda reminds us of a mix of melon and limeade (so maybe like the Melonade melon from Sun Tracker this summer?!) Store on the counter, and remove the bitter membrane (by suprêming with a knife or by teasing the segments apart by hand) before eating. Grown organically by Murray Family Farmsin Bakersfield.
Two decades ago, as an experiment, Sandra Newman of Forbidden Fruit Orchards planted a couple of acres of blueberries 12 miles east of the ocean on the Central Coast. The southern-facing slope was protected from frost and she wanted to see if the blueberry plants would stay evergreen and not go dormant during the winter. They did just that, producing delicious off-season blueberries. She has since added additional acreage, which means a bountiful Winter blueberry crop that blesses us with some blue antioxidants in the sea of citrus orange. The berries hang for a while on the plants during the growing season – during a totally different time of year than the majority of CA blues – and you can taste the difference. Store in the fridge. Grown organically by Forbidden Fruit Orchards in Lompoc.
A few weeks ago, we were wild about Jay’s late-season Santa Barbara grown Fuyu persimmons. Since then, we’ve been thinking about those super sweet, deeply orange, and tinted calyxes persimmons. While most of our go-to persimmon farmers in the valley finished their harvest weeks ago, we realized there was something special about these coastal grown Fuyus. This week, we’ve gone further south to Fallbrook for Beck Grove’s last persimmons of the season, where the climate is mild (and the tropical fruit season is just heating up!) Slowly tree-ripened at Beck Grove, these Fuyus are a sugary sweet grand finale. Store in the fridge or on the counter if you’ll eat them soon. Grown organically by Beck Grove in Fallbrook.
Encore appearances
The closer you get to farming, the more it looks like a monumental struggle. Nature has a way of humbling you. It takes steel nerves and wild patience to hold off harvesting another couple days, waiting out the crest of flavor, not knowing what nature might have in store that could jeopardize a year of work. But John Lagier carries himself with a supernatural calm, this poise. Whether it’s his four-and-a-half decades farming or his familial roots on the farm in Escalon, he knows his crops so well. From the outside, it looks like he’s farming in a flow state. He doesn’t dare to harvest something until it’s really ready. If you remember back in August, we kept waiting for the arrival of Bronx grapes, which meant waiting for John to decide they were ready to harvest. (Pushing ripeness in a thin-skinned grape, tempting the disastrous first rains of the season, poise.) So John has said his Page mandarins are ready and they’re here! If you ask us what our favorite fruit of the winter season is, more often than not we’d say Page mandarins. And John grows the best version of these. The Page is a cross between a clementine and a Minneola tangelo, which – no offense to either – doesn’t really explain its knock-your-socks-off flavor! It’s difficult to peel and the segments cling tightly together, but the flavor and texture are 100% worth the hassle. I recommend quartering the mandarins and peeling from there. Store on the counter. Grown organically by Lagier Ranches in Escalon.
Cara Cara oranges – and Navels too – are really a post-Christmas thing, when they’re plentiful and flavor begins to peak. But Murray Family Farms always has the first to ripen Cara Cara oranges and we can’t wait. Murray’s orchard is near Bakersfield and the earliest California oranges tend to come out of this area. This week, the Cara Cara oranges are smaller in size and the acidity is slightly dominant over the sugars. They still hit the spot – absence makes the heart grow fonder. With cooler nights in the forecast, dropping into the low 30s next week, the fruit will develop more sugars. Store on the counter. Grown organically by Murray Family Farms in Bakersfield.
Red kiwifruit is new in California, having just been introduced in the last couple of years. We don’t know any small farms growing red kiwis (holler if you do!) These are from Wild River Fruit, a 3rd generation grower and packer in Yuba County that’s introducing this variety to the commercial market here. I first had a sample of red kiwifruit shipped from Italy a few years ago and was amazed – it was sweet, subacid, and had flashy red flesh. The Wild River red kiwis is a different variety yet. They resemble a gold kiwi in flavor and texture, with some red streaks in the inner pericarp of the kiwi, the fleshy area near the seeds. The red kiwi was a natural mutation of gold kiwis discovered in China in the 1980s, so this flavor profile makes sense! The flavor is sweet, the texture is firmer, and there are slight raspberry and blackberry notes. Store them on the counter if you like them softer. Grown organically by Wild River Fruit in Marysville.
