Have your tastes changed as your experience grows?

I don’t think jujubes have reached the consciousness of the average consumer. One issue is that you rarely find the good ones for sale at all, Another issue is that the other varieties are never sold at peak ripeness. Here in California you often find jujubes for sale but it’s almost always green Li fruit which have very little sweetness. Occasionally it’s Lang which is a dreadful fresh eating fruit. It actually does taste like cardboard. I think jujubes, especially Sugar Cane, will eventually do well with Americans, because sweetness is their major concern. I like jujubes in part because I like their texture. I think Americans can go either way on the texture but there’s no doubt that many Americans are disappointed if they bite into a fruit and it doesn’t drip down their chin. Jackfruit is becoming more common here but I think it’s going to take Americans a long time to get used to eating it, even though the sweetness and flavor can be excellent, because it just doesn’t fit into their concept of what a fruit should be.

1 Like

Actually I wasn’t just talking about people with really sensitive palates- I morphed it into the folks who are wine and food critics and are part of marketing. I would suggest that they usually promote themselves as being qualified judges of quality.

I get it now. No doubt about that.

love it!
looks like a still life study by gauguin in tahiti!

2 Likes

some of the signs it is gaining popularity would be this thread itself. And while there will be people who like hj and sc, there seems to be more who like other varieties more than just hj and sc.

incidentally, have been giving away relatively unavailable budwood to people who like jujus. Hopefully soon i’d have more than enough bud wood to give away to people who already have trees, but don’t like the cultivars they are growing.

2 Likes

Agreed on the vodka smell, @jujubemulberry, decent vodka smells like perfume to me. The potato vodka at Trader Joe’s is really divine smelling, 10 bucks a bottle and more complex than any Chanel.

2 Likes

My taste in apples has evolved pretty quickly from not liking them at all to starting to like some of the more complexly flavored apples. Two apple tastings put on by the CRFG group here, with 50 to 70 apples each, inspired the change. And even though I have a bad sweet-tooth, and in addition I can’t eat very tangy fruit (I get sores in my mouth right away) I’ve realized that some of my favorite apples have a bit of acid in them too.

As for peaches, I never understood the fuss until I lived in a rental house in Sacramento with a bent-over ancient relic of an heirloom variety in the backyard, basically just one branch of an old tree. Insanely good, still haven’t identified it, but very large, pointed, with thick furry skin that could be slipped off easily, orange freestone flesh… Since then I’ve had to stop buying frozen peaches for smoothies in the winter, because they no longer seem like peaches to me!

I love persimmons. My mother used to make wonderful things from Hachiyas, and she knew to let them get really ripe first, so I still adore a mushy Hachiya, and don’t understand Fuyus. Well, until I found out that if you let them get super-ripe and mushy they resemble Hachiyas a little more and are therefore tolerable.

I’m working on liking Asian pears–it would be nice if I liked them because they are easier to grow than Euros! But truly ripe Euro pears are still my favorites, always have been. I don’t think I will ever like wine, though. Tastes like vinegar to me, unless it’s dessert wine. I still have low tastes in that area!

3 Likes

so happy to hear it isn’t just me!

Since we got Persimmons in Austria i have stopped eating Apples, Pears and Plums :3

I also dont want to buy Pineapples and Papayas here … the taste is not good compared to fresh picked ones.

1 Like

It’s great for sipping. I can’t say that for any other vodka in that price range.

1 Like

wha ???!!!
i thought i had cosmopolitan preferences, but clearly now, somebody across the pond(living in the ‘alps’, of all places) is more eclectic :grin:
i mean-- i still eat apples, pears and plums every once in a while…

1 Like

As the years have passed and I have eaten more fruits, I generally have less and less of an interest in stone fruits, although I still like some apricots and cherries. I typically eat more jujubes in one week than I eat stone fruits all year. I have become more interested in unusual varieties of grapes, usually with seeds, that have more complex flavors than store bought grapes. I love cape gooseberries and wish they sold more often in the US and were easier to grow. They grow much like tomatoes but are susceptible to more pests and more diseases. I have become much more interested in tropical fruits. I probably eat more jackfruit every year than I eat stone fruits. I love guavas but it’s very hard to buy any that are ripe. I love white sapotes but they are hard to find in good condition and at reasonable prices.

1 Like

something i haven’t eaten in my old age and would like to try. Never even seen one personally. Used to hear ‘gooseberry pie’ watching disney’s snow white with my daughter decades ago, haha

most guavas are picked immature just so the shelf life gets extended.
and yes, those thick-rinded white guavas are absolutely refreshing when picked at their prime, and while crisp!

Aren’t these just a type of tomatillo?

1 Like

Cape gooseberries are not related to the traditional gooseberry. Cape gooseberries are sold by many informal names such as golden berries, but they are physalis species. I have actually bought them at Wholefoods in Las Vegas. They are usually imported from South America and available from November - January. They often pick guavas too early. I am so tired of it. I have probably wasted more money on guavas than any other fruit. You would think that guava growers would know when to pick their fruit. I recently bought canistel which has to be sold before it’s ready to eat, and it has a very short shelf life once ripe, but they had been picked perfectly. It’s much harder to time the picking of canistel than guava so why are so many guava growers clueless?

1 Like

you’re right, and yes, i think have tried those already, but just didn’t remember or didn’t try in large enough amounts to make an impression.

i was actually pertaining to the ribes gooseberry which have never tried and not even seen personally.

there’s a wholefoods near here so will definitely try it one more time if they have it. I often have to do taste tests more than once to rid me of prejudice!
could be that have eaten semi-prime ones, or possibly the wholefoods cultivar is of better quality.

i think it is because guavas-- especially the small ones, often ripen in staggered fashion, so the fruit-pickers probably just pick them for the sake of picking them regardless of the stage of maturity(else their bosses would think they are not doing their job).
canistels are much bigger fruits, so the picker would have some downtime to make better/unhurried decisions, and am sure their bosses would rather inform them about the prime-stage of canistels, so as not to waste the fruits.

perhaps unreasonable to ask the fruit pickers to isolate guavas at their prime, with the fruits being so tiny.

also partly explains why the 1-lb guavas are generally in prime condition, whereas the tinier cultivars are hit-or-miss

Seeing all the conversations about tastes, evolving, etc excites me. Such a huge chunk of what im growing ive never tried, going to be such a fun journey!

exciting to try new things, no doubt!
and speaking for myself, quite inclined to give everything a second try. If a cultivar still does not stand out , i will seek out other cultivars before drawing conclusions on the species. Or sometimes just have to give the trees time to mature, as fruits may radically improve as the trees get older.

Same genus, different species. Very different fruits with different eating qualities.

I have tasted them and found them to be very similar to tomatillos, just much smaller and sweeter but pretty useless. I like combining tomatillos with jalapenos to make enchilada and burrito sauce and when dead ripe they are more than sweet enough for that purpose. I grew them once about 25 years ago and never bothered again.