"A G G R E S S I V E L Y F R E S H N E W S"
October 13, 2003
Last week’s PIRANHA PRODUCE PUZZZZLER dealt with a fall favorite: What fall fruit is depicted in Spanish art, for victory?
You can find it right there in the painting. Beautiful, red, plump, with a crack here and there. In Spanish art, there it is. You can see it
in the paintings. Representing victory, the fall…Pomegranate. This week’s PIRANHA PRODUCE PUZZZZLER deals with another
autumn apples: What apple sprang up from a pile of garbage? See next week’s “Aggressively Fresh News” for the answer.
KIWIFRUIT: New crop California fruit is just beginning to be harvested from Fresno in the south to
Gridley in the north. Right now, there are still some old crop Kiwifruit from New Zealand and Chile
available, but those supplies are ending very quickly. You will notice a very big difference between the
old crop and tne new crop. Ripeness. Old crop Kiwifrruit from the Southern hemisphere is very mature
and ripe. In fact, if you try to keep it too long, it will over ripen very quickly. New crop Kiwifruit,
however, from California will be quite firm, and will need a little extra time for ripening. Don’t expect to
order Kiwifruit and serve it immediately. You will need to allow extra time for ripening. If you serve
unripe Kiwifruit, it will be quite pale in color and may be a bit tart. You can ripen your Kiwifruit by
leaving it in the back room, unrefrigerated, and covered. Once they begin to ripen, you can then
refrigerate them. Kiwifruit is the most nutrient dense fruit grown on earth. It’s a vitamin pill…with fuzz.
Is your Kiwi firm or hard?
It all depends on where
it’s grown.
ARNOLD’S
FAVORITES
Arnold and Maria Schwarzenegger
at victory rally in Los Angeles
ARNOLD WILL
BECOME
CALIFORNIA’S
HEALTHIEST
GOVERNOR
He was the youngest world champion body builder, and now he
becomes California’s healthiest Governor.
Arnold
Schwarzenegger was part of the President’s Council for Physical
Fitness and Sports in the early 1990s. Health and nutrition are
very important to Arnold. We found out his favorite fruits and
vegetables: California Peaches and Apples, Spinach and
Tomatoes. “Growing up in Austria,” he told us, “we ate a lot of
Spinach and Tomatoes.”
Perhaps California’s healthiest
Governor can also persuade more Californians to get healthier
and fit, by eating more fruits and vegetables.
STRAWBERRIES: You have been noticing smaller size berries, and certainly a shorter shelf life. That is pretty typical for late
season Strawberries. However, this year, the very cold April, wet May, very hot July, put quite
a bit of stress on Strawberry plants. That prevents the plants from sending their roots very deep.
That simply means that fruit produced from these plants later on in the season, will be smaller
and weaker fruit. Don’t expect shelf life of today’s Strawberries to be like the rest of the season.
It will be much shorter. Buy them and use them immediately. Order conservatively. Also,
because the plants are weaker, and the days are shorter, nights are colder, the plants will produce
smaller berries. One other thing to discuss may be the very quick and abrupt halt to Strawberry
supplies this year. Because the plants are weaker this year, once the autumn rain storms hit
Northern California, growers will most likely simply end the season and stop the harvest. In
normal years, when the plants are healthier and stronger, growers in the fall would strip plants,
wait for a break in the weather and resume harvest. Not this year. Growers are on target for a
record crop this year, anyway, so you will most likely find growers abandoning harvest. New
plants are already in the fields in Southern California. Growers hope that some very early
harvest on new crop California Strawberries would begin somewhere around the holiday season.
You may notice smaller berries
To
help with the supply gap, imports of Strawberries from Australia, New Zealand and Chile
and a shorter shelf life.
could begin in early November. These berries will be air freighted in and in smaller baskets.
There’s a shortage of ‘shrooms.
MUSHROOMS: We had warned you several weeks ago about a possible shortage of mushrooms,
particularly with the white button variety. We spoke to growers in California and Canada last
month for details on the problems. As a reminder, both growing regions experienced
contamination of their compost. Once a bacteria or virus contaminates a mushroom growing bed,
the entire bed, sometimes an entire room of beds, has to be disposed of so that other beds or rooms
won’t be contaminated. One major west coast supplier said that their production on white button
mushrooms had dropped about 30%. Now that we are into Fall and closing in on the holidays,
there will be increased demand, which will put even more pressure on the already tight mushroom
supplies. Prices may not skyrocket, but many mushroom growers in Canada and on the West Coast
are already pro-rating orders.
Piranha Produce; 1601 Cummins Dr. Suite H; Modesto, CA 95358; 877-876-8344
www.piranhaproduce.com