The great achacha search

I was reading a foody newsletter from a blog that I follow. The writer mentioned the achacha, a fruit native to South America. I began to wonder about this fruit. With some googling I found the Australian site of the growers/suppliers. On the site was some information about where to buy the achacha. Okay, so this is where it gets interesting. I trekked along to a few fruit shops. No go. When I was on the tour at the Wholesale Fruit and Veg market the other day, I asked the tour leader about the fruit and she had not heard of it. She asked one of the wholesalers at the market. They had a couple of boxes, but said they hadn't been selling so well. I think this is the first year they've been on the market so maybe a bit new just yet.

The other morning I went to Queen Victoria Market in Melbourne and saw no achachas. I asked a couple of stallholders who had tropical fruit, but they hadn't heard of them. I was thinking that maybe Prahran Market might be the go as they seem to have a few speciality items/stalls. So the trek continued. I'd been to about four fruit stalls without success. Got to Pino's. 'Do you have any achachas?' 'Yes.' I picked myself up off the floor. Eureka! I go the impression from the guy that served me that they weren't flying off the shelves. I got a couple and also purchased some lychees just for comparisons sake.

The achachas are bit bigger than a lychee, but the flesh looks similar and the taste is similar. The fruit acutally reminded me of a loquat. I didn't mind it. Both fruits have a largish pod inside. Will purchase again. It's probably good party food, maybe you wouldn't buy it every day, but it would be lovely on a platter of fruit at the end of lunch or dinner.




Postscript: I was at Little Saigon Market in Footscray during the week, buying some veges and having a general snoop at the place and saw achachas at Tan Tien stall, along with red dragon fruit and white dragon fruit, but that's another story.

Market Tour

When I drive from home in Melbourne's west into the city, I pass the Melbourne Wholesale Fruit, Vegetable and Flower Market. As I am a fully paid up food nerd, I need to know what happens in there. I checked out their website and found a link to market tours.

I paid my dollars and there I was on Tuesday morning at gate 6 of the market at 5.45am! 15 disparate souls all rugged up (being a chilly Melbourne summer morning). We put on our fluoro safety vests and Jan (the tour operater) gave us the OHS chat, keep limbs inside the vehicle, don't get out of the vehicle, etc. We then climbed aboard the little tourist train. As we trundled through the market there were massive numbers of forklifts and motorbike-kind of vehicles with trailers scooting around the place and they get VERY close to our little train. Smaller stalls are in the middle of the sheds, where smaller farmers sell their produce. The bigger farmers and producers, have the primo stalls on the edge that have more room and access available to large trucks outside. Buyers for independent supermarkets, restaurants and most of the fruit and veg retailers including the main markets around town get their produce from this market.

We then headed off to the Flower Market which is part of the set up and in an adjacent shed. There were quite a few sellers, but the shed wasn't packed being so soon after the Christmas/New Year break. Jan took us to a cafe inside the flower shed and we had our coffees (included in the tour cost) and some muffins she handed around. Next to the shed was a place selling vases, tissue paper, boxes, oasis and all the fixings used by retail florists.

The tour was very interesting to see what goes on while most of us are sleeping. Around midnight, many of the market businesses open up and trucks arrive during the night from farms with produce. People from your fruit and veg shop arrive in the middle of the morning (ie 4amish) and buy stock for their shops.

The market will be moving to Epping in 2012 or 2013. The current tour operater will not be moving to the new site. So if you are a food/info junkie, the tour is definitely worth doing to find out what goes on behind the scenes.

The Melbourne Wholesale Fsh Market is on the city side of the fruit and vegetable market. It is a separate entity and it is scheduled to move to Brooklyn.

The photo is pretty simple but it was the best I could do in my sleep deprived state!

Clementines

Finally got to try a clementine! Was in Woolworths in Smith Street Collingwood today fossicking through the fruit looking for peaches and nectarines and there they were, 'Clementine Mandarins, Product of USA'. I was not deterred by the minor issue of non-seasonal overseas produce! They were $5.00 a kilo which is not too bad.

They are not as sweet as the mandarins we usually eat, they have a very slight lemony taste.

I first heard of them through my endless watching of food shows on pay TV. He watches sport I watch food shows, it's a win/win! Nigella has mentioned them. When I googled clementines on the internet I found out that they are part of the mandarin family. Will look out for them during winter and see if they are around.

I thought they might taste a bit more fabulous. Nigella makes them (and everything) sound fabulous though! Well try them again another time.

So that's another tick off my list of food to-do's.

Mexican Food

Last year I watched 'Jamie's America'. There were six episodes and I was really interested in the Arizona episode where he learnt to make tamales with a Navajo indian named Roy; the Navajo mayor on that particular Indian reservation. Prior to this I had never known what a tamale was and thought it was a Mexican dish. Aside from how to make tamales, they also talked about blue corn and made tamale dough with the ground blue corn, which is also called masa.

I jumped onto the internet and began resarching tamales, mexican food etc and found a supplier of Mexican food here in Melbourne, 'Aztec Products'. I had an opportunity to go out last week and check out the place. It is in Tullamarine, about a 5 minute drive from Airport West Shopping Centre. It is a small shopfront attached to a large warehouse. While you are waiting you can browse their product list and liquor list. This turned out to be fortunate for me as a mum and her teenage daughter were purchasing products for a Mexican themed birthday party for 150! I got to hear a lot of chat about the products. By the way, if you are having a Mexican themed party they have bags of little mexican flags for decorations.

As I was making the trek out there I thought I should buy some things. So I grabbed my Mexican cookbook, 'The Essential Cusines of Mexico' by Diane Kennedy. Prior to my Mexican googling following Jamie Oliver's show I had never heard of this lady. She is similar to Julia Child, in that she married a foreign correspondent and his travels took him to Mexico and she developed a passion for the culture and did a lot of research into the food. Thanks to Amazon, I got my Diane Kennedy book!

Given that I had plenty of time at Aztec Products while the party purchasing was happening, I got to flick through my recipe book and listen to the very knowledgeable sales person. So the products I purchased as pictured are white masa (white corn flour - they also had yellow corn and blue corn) dried Ancho chiles (one of the mild ones I was told, will find out in due course I guess!!), nopalitos (strips of cactus), refried black beans (will see how they compare with our supermarket variety) and abuelita (Mexican hot chocolate with cinnamon).



I got the nopalitas because in the Los Angelos episode of Jamie's America he spent time with the Mexican community and one of the things he saw was a small allotment in the middle of an industrial estate where they grew the cactus and people came to buy the fresh cactus. As with the nopalitas, all products were purchased with hopeful ambition!

Will report back on my Mexican endeavours!