Market Report - UK Seasonal update 9 September 2013
In association with
Good morning chef,
Fresh Wild Mushrooms
To coin a football phrase, we are exhibiting strength and depth this week.
A wild mushroom agent proudly presented “French cepes (wormy 20%): €21” on their offering today. We shan’t be buying those ones. Here’s what we have lined up instead:
Cep - fom France and Romania
Chanterelle Jaune - the arrival of the magnificent yellow-legged autumn chanterelle from Spain
Medium and Mini Girolles - from Russia and still lovely
Trompette - from Bulgaria
Pied de Mouton - from Bulgaria
That’s the first team. On the bench but likely to make an appearance before full time we have:
Scottish girolles
Giant puffballs
Cauliflower fungus
Chicken of the wood
Albatrellus aka Forest Lamb or sheep polypore mushroom
Truffles
Summer truffles cling on for a further few days. Very soon (possibly mid-week) the Italians will call them autumn truffles and ramp up prices.
We have heard whispers of whites. I normally like to hold fire until the start of October for the magnificent tuber magnatum,
Fruit
Flat, white, blood and yellow peaches and nectarines
Cherries switch to the US
Kentish cob nuts continue for at least another week
Crab apples
Damson plums
Greengages
Mirabelle plums
The first good English Victoria and Jubileum plums
Lovely and dirt cheap Turkish black figs
Charentais melons
Muscat grapes
Quince
And an almost out-of-control range of tomatoes, if you want to get pedantic about fruit and veg classification
Vegetables
The ever-popular crapaudine, candy and golden beets
Coloured carrots
Swiss and rainbow chard
Purple sprouting broccoli
Potimarron squash
Fresh coco beans
Artichokes galore
Lovely borlotti beans
Brightly coloured cauliflowers
Golden turnips
Our virtually year-round spread of foraged sea vegetables
Lovely waxy Ratte potatoes
A plethora of salad leaves, and in essence more fruit and veg than you could shake a yellow courgette at
Game
The delicious and eminently affordable red-legged partridge is now in full flow.
My favourite game bird, the wild mallard duck, has technically started, but we will wait a couple of weeks for size to increase. Little did I know when feeding mallards with stale bread as a boy that I’d be tucking into their plucked and roasted ancestors with a light Madeira jus some years later, and having infinitely more fun with the latter activity.
We have affordable port and Madeira in handy tapped boxes to complete your dish.
What more can you ask of nature, eh?
For more details of the autumnal bounty, call the team on 020 7498 5397.
Have a great week.
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