My favourite food writing right now is The Art of Eating, a marvellously and unabashedly detailed quarterly magazine talking about the best of fine food. The issue I'm reading now, for instance, has ten pages on Gruyère de Comté. Last issue the feature article was on Olympia Oysters, the smallest and most flavourful oysters from Puget Sound.

The Gruyère issue also has a fantastic article on tropical fruits in Homestead, Florida, the southernmost big town in Florida short of Key West. While all commercial US fruit suffers greatly from the industrial farming process, tropical fruit is the worst off since the stuff is practically rotting before it's really ripe. But in Homestead they grow the stuff and if you're there you can eat it truly ripe and fresh.

The article goes into detail about two establishments. First is Robert is Here, an overgrown roadside fruit stand that specializes in a huge variety of unusual and well grown fruits. Even more exciting is the Fruit and Spice Park, a sort of all-you-can-eat arboretum. 35 acres of well tended trees, most with edible fruit. Visitors are welcome to eat anything on the ground. Both places sound like a great way to try out a variety of exotic fruits. And a welcome change from industrial mangoes that taste like nothing.

culturefood
  2006-05-10 19:55 Z