sugar in savoury products

Yesterday I was in a supermarket and I saw some tins of bouillabaisse soup. I have had this soup many times before and it's delicious. If you like seafood then you'll like bouillabaisse. I don't have it often because it's expensive. I've never had the authentic bouillabaisse from the south of France and I've no idea if the tinned stuff tastes anything like the real thing.

When I ate it I thought that it tasted as if there was sugar in it. So I looked on the label and sure enough sugar was on there. I was annoyed because I really don't have a sweet tooth and I don't like the taste. Also, they've turned what should be a healthy food into something different. I've been trying to avoid lots of fat, sugar and salt. I know that it has always contained 'modified starch' (whatever that is) but adding sugar is something recent.

A few weeks ago I started buying sushi from Sainsbury's. It was cheap and seemed quite healthy. Then I thought it tasted as if it had sugar in it and looking on the label I could see that it did. I have known for some time that cooked pasta in tomato and herb sauce from supermarkets often contains sugar. I know that chefs sometimes add a small amount of sugar to savoury dishes, often in surprising ways. Sugar can be used as a flavour enhancer to bring out flavours, but this is different. I really don't like the taste of soup, sushi or pasta with sugar in it. It's not in the original recipe and it doesn't improve the flavour.

It could be that the amount of sugar in these savoury foods is small. Or it could be a lot of sugar, people are surprised by the amount of sugar that goes into processed foods. Often there's lots of sugar in something but you can't taste it, it might not taste sweet or unbearably sweet. This seems to be a trend that has come from America. The problem is that as the population gets used to savoury foods tasting sweet then people will get a taste for it and manufacturers will add more and more over time. We should be having less and less sugar and instead we are having more and more, even if we want to avoid it. Obesity and tooth decay are big problems, especially in children, and the more this trend continues the more ill health we will have.

weather-damaged apples to be sold in Waitrose

In the Daily Mail last week there was an article that said the Waitrose supermarket will start selling weather-damaged apples at a lower price than their usual cosmetically perfect ones. An EU ban was lifted in 2009 which had meant that 20% of farm produce was thrown away or fed to livestock because it was misshapen or bruised.

A few years ago I started going to Borough Market in London. Chegworth Valley Juices is a company that have their own farm and sell direct to the public. They sell a lot of fruit juices but it is the apples that I am interested in. Apples that are sold in supermarkets and the usual street markets are sold underripe and never develop their full flavour.

Usually when a farmer sees that his apple crop has developed full colour and some sweetness he or she will harvest them. This makes it easier for the farmer and for the supermarket because underripe fruit can be transported with less damage and it has a longer shelf life. However, even if you try to ripen the fruit at home it will never develop its full flavour. Most people don't know what an apple variety is meant to taste like. You need to leave the fruit on the tree for it to develop its distinctive and often delicious flavour.

If you go into a supermarket you may see Asian pears. You might think how wonderful it is that we can have such a wide variety of fruit from all over the world. Asian pears look like big russet apples but are pears. If you try one it has a crunchy texture with some sweetness. You will never know that when an Asian pear is ripe it tastes like a melon. Not an ordinary melon, a delicious melon such as a Charentais.

I know this because I once grew an Asian pear on my allotment. I don't have it anymore but I have several apple trees. My favourite variety of apple is Spartan, which I discovered at Borough Market. It has a wonderful rich flavour. So I have that variety on my allotment. I also have my other favourite variety, Discovery.

People say that Cox's Orange Pippin is the best flavoured variety but it's not such a good one to grow on an allotment because it can be susceptible to disease. So I have a couple of Cox types, Sunset and Kidd's Orange Red. I have had an abundant crop of Discovery apples for several years, and this year my new Spartan tree gave me 3 fruit. Next year I hope to get many more, and of course I leave them on the tree as long as I can so that they develop flavour.

I think that people often say they like a crisp apple because they have never tasted a full flavoured properly ripened fruit. They can't judge an apple on flavour because they all tend to taste all the same, so they judge them on texture. It seems that old varieties of apple are being replaced by new varieties that have been developed to taste better even when underripe. People think that their supermarkets give them wonderful taste experiences but in most cases this is false.

Last year Waitrose had some Spartan apples on sale. This was the first time I had seen Spartan apples on sale apart from at Borough Market and Broadway Market. I bought a bag, but they were underripe and tasted just like any other supermarket apple. They don't have them this year, and I haven't seen these weather-damaged apples on sale either. I can imagine people buying a bag of Spartan apples, getting them home and thinking "I don't think much of these". If only they knew.

Spartan apples are available now at Borough Market and Broadway Market. I have been buying them. Chegworth Valley sell them at both these markets but other people sell them there too. Curiously, whereas supermarkets take great effort to present only cosmetically perfect apples to their customers, at Borough and Broadway Markets they make no effort at all. These apples are small, often misshapen and have blemishes. They would be regarded as poor quality and be rejected by supermarkets and yet they have the most important quality of all - flavour.

So I shall continue to buy apples from Borough and Broadway Markets, because to me flavour is the most important thing. It looks as if I'm not the only one who thinks that way, Chegworth Valley seem to be thriving with new outlets opening in different places. They have a new shop in Borough Market that is bigger than their old one.

The photo below I took myself at the new Chegworth Valley shop in Borough Market.