While supermarkets sell fresh fruit and vegetables labelled as organic, this is really not the best quality food you can buy. The main problem is that it is picked a long time before it is ripe, and some of it can be very old, for example apples can be over a year old (they are stored in special storage rooms with no oxygen and different gasses to keep them looking fresh, although nutritionally they are inferior.) Most of this food will come from large scale industrial farms, often imported from far away.
The place to get the best quality organic food is direct from a local farmer. In many parts of the UK you can find farmers markets where you can buy locally produced, freshly picked, ripe fruit and veg, some of which is also organic. There are also farm shops, some of which are excellent, although be aware as some sell produce not produced by the local farm, so check what you are buying. And if you want to be even more picky about the food you are eating, you could try one of the “Pick Your Own” farms! There is an excellent website with an interactive map of farmers markets, farm shops and pick your own covering the whole of the UK here: FARMA (National Farmers Retail & Markets Association).
London also has a couple of specific websites, the main London Farmers Markets website also with an interactive map of lots of markets across London, plus also City & Country Farmers Markets which runs a few more markets including the excellent Alexandra Palace market on Sundays.
While talking about farmers markets in London, I must also mention Borough Market. This is a large market at London Bridge which has a combination of direct from the farm stalls with fruit and veg, raw milk, cream and cheese, local meat (including wild meat) plus also other speciality food with non local food including cheese from France and excellent olives from Turkey. I love this market and always go when I’m in London. It can be expensive for some things, this is quite a tourist attraction so not somewhere for regular shopping, although great for special extras.
Of course if you are looking for the best quality organic dried foods, remember to check out the Funky Raw online shop.
What’s your favourite farmers market or farm shop?
I just received this calendar from Theresa Webb (Kitchen Buddy) and my first thought was “why didn’t I think of doing this!” It’s a wonderful idea, each month has it’s own selection of photos related to what you might be able to find. It’s not a wild food identification guide, just something to give you some inspiration for the month, with photos of wild leaves and flowers plus also dishes made with these plants.
Just a quick flick through and I’ve already learnt something new – fuchsia flowers are edible! This fascinated me so I did a quick bit of research and found that fuchsia berries are also edible. I found this blog post which says “The flowers and fruit of all fuchsia species are edible raw but flavours may vary considerably” and that the species Fuchsia splendens has the best fruits.
