It’s a lemon

A lemon is any unexpectedly defective or undesirable thing or person, usually said of bad choices, as in “We picked a lemon when we chose that guy,” or of unsellable cars ( in the motor trade), or new-bought cars that develop mysterious serial problems. To hand someone a lemon is to swindle.  WikiAnswers

My kind neighbour usually keeps me well supplied with lemons from his two trees, but for a short portion of the year, these great trees take a rest and there is no fruit.  So recently, I purchased a few lemons from the supermarket.  I specifically chose Australian grown fruit, to support the local industry, but it seems I really did purchase some  ‘lemons’.

The fruit looked too gorged for my liking, too ‘pumped’ and soft, especially compared to home-grown fruit.  But in my rural area, there’s not a lot of choice when it comes to purchases, so I made my selection.  Yes, the fruit was very juicy, extremely so actually – more than I needed.  I’m used to using one lemon per day – the juice from one half going on my midday meal, and the remainder on my evening meal.   But with these supersized ones, there was sufficient for two days.  Great – except that even under refrigeration the fruit would go bad overnight and become unusable.  Storage of these lemons proved to be a problem also, as they went mouldy very quickly.

Who is to blame?  The consumer for wanting large glossy fruit at the expense of other qualities, or the grower for pushing along their produce with the aim of quick profits?  I don’t know, but it certainly has left a sour taste in my mouth about supporting local growers.

I also this summer purchased from a greengrocer peaches grown in my state.  I love peaches, and have fond memories of biting into sweet soft  juicy flesh of home-grown fruit.  Over the past few years I had given up buying them because I found them all to be hard, tasteless and barely edible, but I was tempted by some and thought I’d give them another  try.  I bought two yellow flesh and two white fleshed fruit.  Once again, disappointment.  They appeared fine, but once again texture and flavour was entirely missing.

Is this the world we live in now?  Where appearances count for more than content?