Monday, November 19, 2012

Mountain pawpaw with lemon and sugar, and a Slow Food visit to the Grey Lynn Community Gardens








Yesterday around 20 members and friends of Slow Food Waitakere visited the Grey Lynn Community Gardens, an inspiring place. Our hosts were gardeners Fionna Hill and Lynne Walker and I would like to thank them for welcoming us. If you like to see more photos of the gardens and the Slow Food tour please click here.







The gardens have wonderful produce, and I picked this sweet smelling mountain pawpaw. To tell the truth the smell (very tropical) was better than the taste: it was really watery, probably because it rained so much recently. But when I have "watery" fruit I know that I can just add a few drops of lemon juice and a tiny bit of sugar, and then wait for a few hours. It works like magic! I want a pawpaw tree in my garden now! I kept some seeds, I hope that they will sprout!



Photos and Recipes by Alessandra Zecchini ©

21 comments:

  1. Thanks for the tip about the mountain paw paws. I have a tree in my garden (they grow super fast!) and I love the smell, but the not the flesh. The seeds and pulp are really delicious -- eat like passion fruit.

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  2. ahhhh, I planted all the seeds... I should have tried them before! :-)

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  3. Maybe the problem is growing tropical fruits in non-tropical areas - the flavour never seems to develop properly! Not that it matters if you can 'fix' it!!!

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  4. This seems to be the only type suited to Auckland (considered sub-tropical) as it grows in the mountains, but yes, fruit tastes different from where it is supposed to be, and not only the tropical one, even European fruit, like cherries and peaches... they don't have the same taste here, they are less sweet and with less flavor and you need to add twice the amount of sugar to make jam set... in a way I aways feel sorry when I "fix" fruit with sugar :-). But then I get happy about anything that grows even if it doesn't taste like "the original"!

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  5. That's a great way of infusing a bit of flavour into fruit that is a little lacking, Alessandra - I must remember that tip :-)

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  6. Ogni volta mi piace perdermi nei tuoi post e nelle tue ricette che sanno di sole! :) Un abbraccio cara.. grazie per il reportage! :) Buona settimana!

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  7. Questa sapeva anche un po' di pioggia, il sole ce l'ho messo dentro col limone. :-)

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  8. allora tifo per la tua personale papaya :)

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  9. belle foto Alessandra!Vivi davvero in un bel posto! Buona settimana...

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  10. Nice tip! Strawberries taste very watery if you pick after a rain so I guess it's always safer to pick fruit in the afternoon of a sunny day. If only Auckland had more sunny afternoons.

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    1. Really? I guess that I always pick fruit in the morning (or so I always did, never though much about it, it was what I had learned), but Auckland is particularly wet, I'll try to wait for the afternoon for my next strawberries, and see if there is a difference :-)

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  11. Ahhh quanto vi invidio l'estate adesso :-)

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  12. passare da te in questo periodo mette un po' di caldo nel nostro autunno uggioso

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  13. Wonderful place! Produce looks lovely :) Have a great weekend, Alessandra!

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  14. Ohhh Great.. I Liked.

    Thanks

    Murat

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