Local Fruit

Green Chick's comment on my Farmers' Market post got me started researching what foods are available right now in Florida. I found the Tropical Fruit Growers of South Florida's website and their fruits for the month for July and August: longan and mamey sapote. The longan is called the little brother of the lychee and I have actually enjoyed both the longan and the lychee with dear friends in Hilo, Hawaii. And I served canned lychees with kiwi in a crystallized ginger syrup as dessert (photo above) for the Indian Feast. I am not familiar with the mamey sapote, but that will be part of my research next. The Tropical Fruit Growers also feature dragon fruit which I recently saw at Whole Foods along with fresh lychees. Our friends in Hilo also took us to a farmers' market to sample the dragon fruit, which I have to admit I didn't especially care for.
The nearest CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) is Green Cay Produce, Farming Systems Research in Boynton Beach. On their website, they have charts for the monthly availability of their produce. Of course, they operate only the months of October through May, so we are not able to take advantage of that source of local produce during the summer months.

Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services has a chart of produce availability which can be downloaded as a PDF. In July, the crops listed are avocados, cantalope, green beans, green peppers, mangoes, and watermelon. I am sure that those items will soon be appearing at Publix and The Boys Market if they are not already there.

Today's Sun-Sentinel Food Section Vegetarian Today column by Steve Petusevsky is "Some Delectable Mango Recipes," written because people are bringing him so many fresh mangoes from trees growing in yards. He says he welcomes them all and gives advice about using the bounty both now and frozen for later use. That appears to be the secret to eating local: buy it when you see it and preserve it. Be sure to see the mango chutney recipe in the Indian Feast post which includes a link for those who do not know the easy way to cut a mango into pieces.

My favorite salad is perfect for eating local this time of year in Florida. The salad consists of romaine, field greens, spinach, red onion rings, sliced avocados, sliced mangoes and passion fruit vinaigrette dressing.