I am showing my age.
The last few times I went to the grocery store, I did an imitation of my late grandmother. I start by saying how nice the fruit looks, and then proceed to picking up the ripest looking specimens. Feeling how hard they sit in my palm, I lift them to my nose and sniff in a fruitless attempt to discern the scent of peach or canteloupe or raspberries. Sometimes, I thump the melons in an unsuccessful attempt to identify ripeness. Most times, I just leave the fruit section, muttering under my breath about how fruit was better when I was a kid.
I may have been spoiled. We had berries in our back yard when I was a child in Saskatchewan. At one point, we lived near cherry orchards in Idaho. When we moved to British Columbia, we lived in the berry capital of Canada and I grew to take fresh strawberries, raspberries, and blueberries as my birthright. After I became an adult, my parents moved to the orchard country of the Okanagan, with its cherries, apples, and peaches.
I know the cause. Fruit growers are cultivating varieties for how well they travel, not how well they taste, in part, I suspect, because consumers are no longer willing to wait for fruits to come into season. Instead of waiting for the short window of watermelon, we expect it year round -- and we get it.
Too bad it doesn't taste like anything.
