Has eating something from its optimal growing area ruined you for anything less? If so, what?

I agree with you about the corn. I bought some “fresh” corn from Walmart today. It’s only late April. My husband laughed and we discussed where this corn may have came from. but I really wanted corn, and frozen wasn’t going to do

good question!

Any grocery store meats pale in comparison to what we get directly from friend’s small ranches. I hate to pay good money for the inferior stuff.

Umm… Venison?

@Blueroses Yes. How could I forget. We are getting a hog from a neighboring farm in a few weeks. Oscar Meyer bacon can never compare to what we’re about to get. I’m hungry now, damnit.

Carrots: pull them from the ground, wipe the dirt off them with the blade of your finger and munch. Same with pretty much any produce. It’s so much tastier when you pull it out of the ground or from the plant or off the bush, or out of the tree. Most store bought produce is mediocre at best.
Carrots from the store: peel… frown, shrug, munch, sigh with discontent.

Everyone should be their own farmer.

Tomatoes and Blueberries. Jersey Tomatoes are just a million times better than any other IMO and I live in the “Blueberry capital of the world” evidently , all I know is the blueberries are freakin huge and delicious :P

mmm, fresh blueberries. That thought makes me happy. And then sad because the last blueberries I bought at the store were horrid, sour, mummified little beasts. Discontent, indeed

Deep fried battered pizzas and deep fried battered Mars bars. Not that there is anything about the ingredients that are unique to this area. It’s just that we are the only people stupid enough to do such a thing. Still, what use would those extra years of life be worth without deep fried pizzas and Mars bars?

Goat cheese and other cheeses. I’ve been shopping at farmer’s markets a lot more and have signed up for a Community Supported Agriculture farm-to-table delivery program for fresh produce.

Livng outside of Memphis is just horrible for produce in general. I find it very frustrating having lived in FL, NY, MD, all had better produce in average supermarkets. My biggest dissappointments are iceberg lettuce, citrus of all types, nectarines and peaches, and tomatoes. Pretty much I only buy in season here, because out of season is just not edible half the time. The items I named are even sketchy in season. I throw out a lot of food. What a waste.

Eating fresh lobster and Mahi Mahi we caught while on a scuba dive trip in the Bahamas made me realize how messed up the seafood industry is.

Seafood. Yeah, that’s another.

Tomatoes I grow myself are far better than ones bought at the market.
Michigan cherries are the best IMO too.

While visiting my wife’s foster parents in Michigan a few years ago, I met several people who swore they would not eat corn if it had been picked more than an hour before. I tried it, and it was wonderful, but I still love regular corn.
My father used to rave about how much better pineapple is in Hawaii.

@lucillelucillelucille I’m pretty sure it is a fact MI cherries are the best.

@JLeslie You know it! :)
Traverse City here I come!

I took a year off bananas after I went to Mexico. I can eat them again now.

Jersey tomatoes and corn ruin you for the same elsewhere although I did have fantastic corn once in Illinois. And at camp in Pennsylvania we picked blueberries and the cooks put them in muffins at breakfast. Blueberries from out of Pennsylvania are almost tasteless in comparison.
Here in Texas we have Vidalia onions. Looking forward to July!

@Aster The only thing that consoles me regarding honey crisp apple season being over is Vadalias coming back into season.

Tomatoes picked and eaten in my back yard.
Cherries from my state, Yes Michigan!
Blueberries, asparagus, and huckleberries from where I live.
Beans, heritage dry beans grown just a mile or two from me.
Sweet corn, must be local and picked and eaten within the hour.
I send my husband out to pick the corn and put the pan on to boil at the same time. He picks and strips the corn while the water heats. Boil 3 minutes and eat with butter and salt.

Chickens raise by a friend of mine, until I ate one of those, I didn’t know what chickens were really supposed to taste like.

Fresh pineapple eaten in Hawaii, is the only way.

Kiwi’s…they just aren’t the same unless bought fresh in New Zealand when in season

Yep, Pennsylvania sweet corn. In fact, the best farm to buy from is called Denny’s. Easy to remember. I never settle for less.

Maine lobster tail.
Raspberries fresh out of my moms garden.

Ohio tomatoes are pretty amazing. Have to agree with the Michigan cherries (and jerky). In Ohio, we also grow excellent corn (Silver Queen is a personal favorite) and we also fix it right after picking. We also have great black walnuts.

The best pralines I ever tasted were from Charleston, SC and the only decent Buckeye candy I ever had was from Ohio (or made by an Ohioan). The best dates were from a roadside stand in some remote part of Arizona.

@Aster The best Vidalia onions come from Vidalia, GA (in fact, the ONLY Vidalia Onions come from GA, by law, really) . . . Link

@Kayak8 Good point. Our vidalias are from Georgia.

Yes. I live in a rural ‘farm trails’ community and after enjoying my own as well as all the locally grown produce, it is awful during the winter when all the store bought tomatos etc. are mere shadows of real, fresh, sun ripened foods. Gah!

Garrison Keillor describes the winter store-bought tomatoes as ”...those styrofoam things they strip-mine down in Texas…”. Perfect.

Oh man, what’s tastier than a slightly sun-warmed tomato eaten directly after plucking from the vine? Biting down right there and letting the juice run down your chin… it’s like rediscovering childhood.
Those pale, tough, bland things at Albertson’s are Satan’s handiwork. They make me want to cry.

@Kayak8 thanks. I think what they’ve done here is produce very sweet onions, not hot, and some call them “Vidalia” but they really arent. Most call the ones around here “sweet onions.”
They’re so special that we have a festival based on them each summer. But I seriously doubt if the word, “Vidalia” is on any of the labels.

I live near the town of ‘Cool’ California and we have the BEST community gardens that operate on the honor system. You can drop in and pick anything you want form all kinds of tomato’s, beans, cukes, squash, plums, etc. on & on.

They have a tent shelter with bags and a blackboard with prices. Get what you want and put your cash in the box. I LOVE stopping by on hot summer evenings and wandering around picking my own items.

‘Cool gardens’ is a very cool place! ;-)

Should that become a foodie bucket list? 1. Eat cherries in Michigan, 2. Eat Maine lobster, 3. Eat Vidalia onions, in Georgia 4. Eat corn right off the stalk… etc

Maui Gold pineapple from Hawaii. Just thinking about it makes me salivate.

The best steak I ever had was in Texas.

@JLeslie In Amarillo? They serve 72 oz steak dinners there. Eat it all in a hour, along with your salad, baked potato, shrimp cocktail and roll, you get it free.

I had the best steak ever in this obscure western themed steakhouse on the outskirts of Taipei city, Taiwan last year.
It was a Texan who married a Taiwanese woman and opened the steakhouse. It was so bizarre to be eating at ‘The Texas Longhorn BBQ’ surrounded by asian musicians and Taiwanese beer! haha

www.longhorn96.com

Strawberries fresh from the field in California.

@SuperMouse

How could I forget California strawberries! Have a local strawberry farm nearby, oh god…the summer produce/fruit scene can;t get here fast enough. I am so sick of apples/oranges and tangerines!

I also picked tomatoes off my father’s plant in New Jersey and carried a salt shaker with me. Looking back on it, he seemed to object to my doing that. Strange.But those were the best tomatoes ever.

@Aster Thats the best, Just a little salt maybe some white balsamic. YUM

Having grown up in California, I found the state of affairs for avocados, asparagus, and artichokes on the other side of the country to be really sad. Just.. so not the same.

Supermarket produce blows in general. :\

Grown at home or procured at a farmer’s market seems to be the only way to go. Also, the produce available in Italy is unbelievable! After eating the most delicious and tasty fruits and veggies, supermarket produce is like a ghost of a joke in comparison. Italy is the only place I’ll eat pears—every time I try to eat a pear in the US, it is disgusting, Pears in Italy are juicy, the perfect firmness/crispness and softness ratio, sweet.. mmm.

Ok, just to bitch a little about the supermarkets. I find it incomprehensible that a fruit can say “ripe when picked” and be green still.

Like @kenmc, venison and other wild or free range meats have made it harder for me to enjoy other red meat. Except for bacon, but that’s smoked and salted, and I would still prefer wild boar bacon.

@linguaphile good idea about the food bucket list. I’m writing mine down right now from the suggestions here.
I might also add, salmon and crab from Alaska.

Vermont maple syrup spoiled me. Other maple syrup is iffy, and any syrup that has ingredients in it other than distilled sap is just disgusting.

I also got spoiled on milk, cheese, and bacon.

oh, @wilma and reindeer sausage from AK

@jerv True about the syrup! Especially the part about adding other stuff to it. Sacrilege.

Artesian well water from a teensy village in New Mexico.

Golf ball sized green/yellow apples from a family member’s tree in Colorado. I’ve never smelled another apple like it, so fragrant and distinctive.

New Mexico chile powder. I have no idea what type of chili it’s dried and made from but it’s got a distinctive smell and flavor that I’m spoiled for.

Goat’s milk hard cheese from a mountain town in Colorado (decades gone). I’ve never found another cheese like it.

Mmmmmmangoes from Belize picked right off the tree. Oh great now I want one!!! Lol

@Twixt3 I know exactly what you are talking about! I spent a week in Roatan not far from Belize and those little yellow mangoes right off the tree melt in your mouth! YUM!

Forest Rabbits, Vensions, Geese. Minnesota. During hunting period ofc.
South Dakota Phesants, the big juicy ones.
North Dakota Ducks. The big juicy ones.
Meat that you can’t taste in a blended whopper

@Trojans40 Have you tried Montana yak and caribou and Wyoming bison?

Caribou Soup, and it was AMAZING flavor but it was from another state, I think Idaho, could be even Canada. Wyoming Bison no; but Minnesota Bison, however the bision was farmed in a small 50×30 arce and to be honest.. it wasn’t the best wild meat I ate.