Fruit and vegetable hunting
The positive thing with having to be indoors resting any given body part, is that I have time to blog more, as you might be able to tell by the three posts that I currently make each day. The bad thing is that one gets very restless and a tad bored, so today I took an opportunity to get out and limp my way to the fruit and vegetable market for some inspiration, and fresh fruits and vegetables of course.
One would imagine the Caribbean to offer an abundance of wonderful fruits and vegetables in every color imaginable but that's unfortunately not the case. You will find a wider and greater selection in any normal sized super market back home in Europe or in the States, and what's good here, are obviously only the fruits and vegetables that are regional and of the current season. Sure there are local oranges, but they are pretty dry all year long, nothing close to what you can get in Florida or Valencia for example. There are tomatoes, but they too are not typically as good as the ones you get back home in Europe. Also the Caribbean cucumber is far from as juicy and delicious as the Swedish or European version. What about the bananas? Nope, not even on Martinique where half of the island is covered by banana plantations, you are sure to find a decent cluster of fruit as almost all goes straight for export. What you can always count on though, are the coconuts. As well as the mangoes when the season is right (not now), grapefruits (wonderful between march-june), pineapple (most of the year), avocados (season just finished), plantain and chili fruits which seem to be available all year long and the lettuce isn't too bad either.
The good thing though is that most of the local produce that you get here in the local markets, are ecological, but I'm still wondering if there are no better ways to cultivate even greater fruits and veggies, with the good climate here is? I understand that certain vegetables grow better in a tad colder climate, but from what I remember, the overall selection was much wider in for example South East Asia, and that area of the world should be pretty close to the temperature and climate of the West Indies? Also wondering how it is in the South Pacific, what fruits and veggies are available and attractive over there?
