Some successes and some failures at market today. The shockingly unseasonal weather continues to affect the English asparagus crop. Some good tasting asparagus is coming in from Suffolk farms but Kent asparagus proved very hard to find again this week. Even the Isle of Wight grown asparagus didn't get their usual two week head start this year. As good growers normally stick to a pretty strict 6-7 week season for the health of the plants, it will be interesting to see when harvesting stops this year. The English cherry season is also delayed. Normally we would be seeing the early varieties starting to appear around now but we probably have a couple of weeks to wait yet. I did finally manage to buy a couple of authentic Alphonso Mangoes. Bad weather on the Indian subcontinent severely reduced the crop this year. Some unscrupulous passing off of inferior varieties has resulted in good greengrocers refusing to stock mangoes labelled 'Alphonso'. No sign of European apricots yet but I did at least get to taste a Lebanese apricot today - small, pale and unpromising to look at but surprisingly sweet, they have a very short season. You can find them at Panzer's deli in St John's Wood.
Please can we have some summer sun now!
