I’m visiting Bangkok currently, so: definitely custard apples and mangosteens. Snake fruits and guava and the specific type of tangerines they use as “oranges” over here, too. And the green skinned “sweet oranges” which are also awesome. And like all the various types of mangos you can get in Thailand.
Also, I’m taking “available” to mean “purchasable, and ripened mostly on the vine”, because the stuff that gets shipped internationally is picked SUPER unripe just so it doesn’t spoil before sale.
Basically, I would fucking LOVE it if there was a Thai grocery in my city that flagrantly violated the Washington Treaty.
For real though, if you ever get the chance to try a ripe custard apple, they’re absolutely fucking delicious. Can’t recommend it enough.
Apricots. They’re available, but they’re always shitty.
I’d kill for apricots like you can get in the EU. Cheaper than here and they were delicious, not mealy and bland.
Agree. Good apricots are elusive. I have had them but 99% of the time they go straight from underripe to mealy.
Bananas other than the Cavendish and a greater variety of potatoes. There are supposed to be so many varieties of each out there, but we only get one banana and 3 or 4 potatoes.
The cherimoya is also pretty good from what I remember, so I would like to have that again for >$5.
I had a cherimoya in Spain and I LOVED it. Impossible to find here in NA though :(
I got mine from a higher end grocery store (Wegmans) so something like that is your best bet. Keep searching!
Ooo, the Ugli Fruit aka Jamaican Tangelo was good too that I found there!
Big fan of cherimoya ✋ Looked into ordering some online once, the price is insane
The variety of bananas in Vietnam was great. I was going to put that here since they are impossible to import quickly enough.
the Gros Michel banana. I never had the chance to try one before they were wiped out.
edit: and the Hua Moa banana, because it looks silly
The Gros Michel isn’t fully extinct, you can still buy them as delicacies. But from what I’ve heard they aren’t that great, just different to the Cavendish
I’ll tack on apple bananas. They’re tiny and taste like an apple and a banana had babies.
Apple bananas are freaking amazing. I’m always so happy when we score some at the Asian grocery. That little pop of acidity makes all the difference.
I’m Canadian but for some reason you never see tangerines anymore. Plenty of other citrus but not tangerines
I also would like to see pink and red fleshed apples in the store. And pawpaws. I sometimes get some from my local farmer friend and they are SO good but hard to come by.
I feel like this thread is going really be “available in your part of the US.”
Grocery stores and populations are pretty varied across the US. What you can easily get in a San Francisco, Manhattan, or Boise grocery store can differ quite a bit.
The original intent was to learn about fruits and veggies that most americans would be unaware of or dont have access to eg. brazilian grapes, ube, drumstick, adzuki beans etc. but good point.
Drumstick 🤤🥺
I prefer the Kentucky Fried cultivar
I have a hard time finding black currant
Yes! As a Scandinavian living in the US: I would love to see black currant, red currant, and gooseberries in my grocery store.
And cloudberries! I want to taste cloudberries!
I’ve heard rumors that, while we see two kinds of mango in the US, there are many more varietals in India, and they’re all better. I’d like to have access to some of those; mangoes rock.
Oh there are like many varieties of mangoes z but hands down best is called hapoos or alphonso, it’s so so good. I recently found it EU due a colleague and tasted other varieties too such as kesar ( in think it means orange) , in could eat the peel also . The only place that you might get is Indian grocery stores in the areas specially now to end of julyi guess
I suspect this is like our tomatoes. The tomatos you buy in stores were cultivated to be pretty, to get harvested by a machine, and to ship without getting damaged. Meanwhile, heirloom tomatoes will split their skin on a humid day, but they pack a ton more flavor in. The same is true for the vast majority of our fruit and veg. Actually ripened on plant produce doesn’t have a very long shelf life.
That’s not what heirloom tomatoes are. Heirloom means they’re not hybrids. There are loads of heirloom and hybrid varieties with all kinds of properties, flavours, shapes and sizes.
I was generalizing about heirlooms not being very easy to grow to modern standards. I grow a decent verity of heirlooms and hybrids and the hybrids don’t split nearly as often.
Also large tomatoes which split are usually classed as beefsteak tomatoes. There are heirlooms like Brandywine and hybrids like Brandy Boy. And if you don’t grow tomatoes yourself you’ll never know the difference.
And if you don’t grow tomatoes yourself you’ll never know the difference.
What do you mean? Once you have home grown, or even farm stand, produce you realize that the vast majority of grocery store stuff is picked before it’s really ripe.
You’re confused.
Fiddleheads
Finger limes
Thin-walled bell peppers like you find in Japan and China. Even the local Asian grocery stores don’t sell them, and I can find pretty much anything else.
Like the Shephard peppers?
No, very different. These are like miniature bell peppers with thin walls. Shepherd peppers are not so small and have thick walls.
Takii’s New Ace is a variety I’ve grown.
My favorite type of apple is Jazz. It’s less-sweet than the Honeycrisp, which tends to be more-widely-available.
I’ve seen Jazz apples in stores around Southeastern Pennsylvania. They’re pretty good, but my favorite is Pazazz apples. They’re similar in size to Honeycrisp but sweeter with a bit of tartness to them.
Persimmons. I know they’re available at least in the bay area because I had them when I lived there briefly, but have never found them in my regular home in the pacific northwest. I also don’t remember them as a kid growing up in Tennessee.
Note that there are two different cultivars I’ve seen sold in the Bay Area.
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Fuyu. These are typically eaten crunchy (and are so even when ripe), like an apple. They look kind of like a tomato, are short and wide.
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Hachiya. There are very soft, almost a jell-o consistency, when ripe, and are very fragile. My dad used to grow them in his backyard.
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I get them in Texas from the Korean market. I don’t know that they’re available year round though.
I’d be surprised if you couldn’t find any via Asian markets in the Pacific Northwest.
Oooh I haven’t checked there, thank you!
I keep thinking back to this. I believe persimmons are in season in the fall, so if you don’t find them now, go back in a few months and you should have better luck.
Cumquats. We can get them here, but I rarely see them. What could be better than a little orange you can eat like a grape?
I think you meant kumquats, your version may be creamier though. ;P
Strawberries that taste like they did 10+ years ago?
Strawberries are so easy to grow that they are almost invasive.
If you leave them alone, they will overtake whatever is near them.
Each strawberry plant I have sends off multiple runners, with multiple nodes per runner.
It is a very high exponential growth rate.
You can start with 4 and have over 100 in 2 years.
Except now you have 100 plants that all taste like shit, because all strawberries now taste bland or sour.
Spoken like someone who hasn’t grown strawberries any time recently.
