New-to-me Produce

[hrj]

I've been thinking of getting back to doing a regular "new-to-me produce" thing. Picking up some fruit or vegetable I've never eaten before and giving it a try. I spotted mulberries at the Ferry Building farmers market yesterday and figured they were worth a go. After a little research on what people normally do with them, I figured I'd try a pudding-like-object, making use of some ingredients I had sitting opened in the fridge. Simmered the mulberries in a little sweet wine until they were mushy, then added coconut milk and thickened with a bit of corn starch. As predicted by the cookbooks, the mulberries have only a very slight flavor. I'd tried one plain before cooking to confirm, and it was one reason why I used the coconut milk as the main carrier. So I got a very very slightly mulberry-flavored coconut pudding. Which was tasty, but not really worth what I paid for the mulberries. Overall grade: C+.

Comments

[hudebnik]

I think I've only eaten them out-of-hand, when I happen to walk under a bearing tree with sufficiently low-hanging branches. In which the selling point is "I can pick these right off the tree, and they're edible and sweet." They do have a distinctive flavor, but it's not strong. For the red ones, I think it's largely about the color: I seem to recall some 15th-century English recipes colored with mulberries.

[stitchwhich]

I wonder if simmering them down, almost rendering them, would bring out the flavor without just spoiling the whole batch. If one had a crop of them, that is, so it wouldn't cost too much to try.

Some of the new fruit showing up in the markets intimidate me - I have no idea at all how, or if, to even peel them.

[hrj]

I suspect that the ones I bought may have been picked under-ripe. They were also about twice as expensive as I see for raspberries/blackberries, and I suspect they aren't a regular commercial crop for the vendor in question. It also suddenly occurs to me that it may not be the high season for mulberries. Since they're at the farmers market I assumed they were local, but checking on when they normally ripen, I think they must be southern hemisphere imports. So maybe I shouldn't write them off entirely but just make sure they're locally sourced and actually ripe.