fruit — 2012 — The 21st Century Matriarch

Summer is a great time for ice cold smoothies. All they take is a blender that is strong enough to process ice and some creativity with things you probably already have in your refrigerator. The basics are easy:

Choose your ice. It can be water ice or a frozen form of one of the ingredients. Frozen bananas are my favorite for fruit smoothies. Frozen cherry tomatoes work well for veggie smoothies.
Choose your other ‘solid’ ingredients. Most blenders have a ‘fill’ line for non-liquids and it can get messy if you fill beyond that point. Seasonal fruits and veggies are all good choices.
Choose your ‘liquid’ to enable smooth blending. I almost always use a bit of lemon juice then add water or tea or juice. Again - do not overfill the blender.
Blend the ingredients first using pulses until the icy part is beginning to break up. Then run the blender on medium and then high. The smoothie should be thoroughly mixed, smooth, and frothy.
Enjoy your smoothie.

Remember serving size and avoid adding ingredients that will add a lot of calories. For this reason - I rarely use fruit juice for the liquid to get to the fill line in my smoothies.

My favorite fruit smoothie right now is a frozen banana, blueberries, a splash of lemon with water. I may add some fresh mint to my next one.

The pictures show my favorite veggie smoothie: frozen tomatoes, green onion, a splash of lemon juice, 4 drops of hot sauce, garlic and herb Mrs. Dash and water. This veggie smoothie is essentially a lunch salad in a glass! Next time I’ll try to remember to add a couple of fresh basil leaves.

In the earliest periods of human history, 4 foods were recognizably important. In the North there were apples and honey. In the south there were olives and grapes. - Fruits and Berries (The American Horticultural Society Illustrated Encyclopedia of Gardening)

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Do we associate fruits and berries with locations in our modern world? I do…but it isn’t north/south as much as type of place where they most likely grow. Here are my associations:

Blueberries in close proximity to rocky forests
Apples with locations that have crisp temperatures (not overwhelmingly hot)
Oranges and bananas with the tropics
Strawberries of the short and sweet season before the heat of summer comes in any place that has well drained soil

Of course, agriculture is a business that responds to consumers.

Food is shipped all over the place so we have a blueberry season in North America in the summer and then our grocery stores have blueberries from South America in January.
Cultivars of popular fruits and berries have been developed to produce more than once during the season; strawberries are available all through the year although they are the still the least expensive during the short and sweet local season.
Bananas and apples can now be suspended in storage for longer than ever before; our fresh fruit may have been picked months before it is eaten.
A thin film (hopefully edible since it does not wash off and we do eat the skins of many fruits) is placed on many fruits and it keeps them fresh longer after they are removed from storage.

In European history, the North’s apples and honey and the South’s olives and grapes are powerful associations. Now that most of us are not farmers, we experience the availability of our food more indirectly and those associations are blurring. This year I plan to make weekly visits to a local farm stand as soon as the season starts to ‘go local’ for produce --- to be more linked to the food sources in my immediate vicinity.