Tag: fruit
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Banana
Nowadays this tropical fruit is an everyday household ingredient but historically it was perceived as an exotic rarity. Even just after World War II rationing, it was considered to be a rare treat. Bananas probably originated in Southeast Asia, and from there to the Middle East and then on to Africa. From there, Spanish and Portuguese…
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Apricot
The apricot originated in China and spread slowly westward. It was introduced into England from Italy in 1542 by Jean Le Loup, Henry VIII’s gardener. It’s a fragrant fruit with a soft velvety skin and is a relative of the peach, nectarine, plum and cherry. British apricots are available from May to September, but more often…
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Aubergine (Eggplant)
What is it? It’s a fruit which is used as a vegetable. It comes in a wide variety of shapes, sizes and colours, ranging from the large, glossy, almost-black purple example above to the ‘pea aubergine’ which is popular in Thailand. The pea aubergine looks like a green pea, which in Britain is sometimes used…
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Ackee
Ackee, sometimes called ‘akee’, is the red, pear-shaped fruit of a tropical African tree. It’s related to the lychee and the longan. The fruit is very popular in Caribbean cuisine – it’s the national fruit of Jamaica – and is thought to have first arrived from Africa via a slave ship. It was later imported to…
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Pomegranate
Pomegranates originate from Persia, but are now mainly grown in Spain, the Middle East, and America. They’re round, about the size of an apple, with a hard, shiny, red skin, which is inedible. Inside the fruit you’ll find countless little edible seeds, each of which is contained in a jewel-like sac of sweet juice. The…
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Avocado
The mild-flavoured avocado pear – these days often shortened to simply ‘avocado’, and sometimes also known as the alligator pear or the butter pear – is technically the fruit of the avocado tree (and unrelated to true pears) but is commonly used as a vegetable. (Sainsburys, who in 1962 were the first supermarket chain to…
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Watermelon
Watermelons are large, sometimes stripy, dark green spherical fruits, although there are some other rarer varieties of different coloured rind. The relatively tasteless but refreshing and thirst-quenching flesh is usually crimson, red or pink, but again other varieties are known. They’re members of the gourd family, along with cucumbers, pumpkins and courgettes. Jane Grigson is…