Prime
Fruits: Keeping the doctor away
Fruits are an essential part of our diet. PHOTOS BY ISMAIL KEZAALA
What you need to know:
Nature’s basket.The doctors recommend that you have your daily servings of fruits for health purposes. Fruits are one of those things you can never run away from or rather should never run away from.
The word fruit, interestingly and appropriately enough, emanates from the Latin word fructus meaning enjoyment. Their colours, textures, shapes, aromas, and endless variety of flavours make fruits an enormous pleasure not only to shop for, but also to eat.
“It was not a watermelon that Eve took,” observed the American author Mark Twain. “We know it because she repented.” There is something about “a piece of fruit”- no matter which- so tidy, shapely, self-contained and full of promise as to appeal to the larcenous instincts in all Eve’s children.
A great dessert
Besides the irresistible watermelon described by Mark Twain above, Uganda is blessed with a bounty of fresh fruits that are pretty much available year round and those that are not locally grown are nevertheless readily imported from Kenya and South Africa.
Today’s menu-builder often takes herself much too seriously and is accustomed to think that it is de rigueur that dessert must be an impressive edifice with a sinfully and all too often disastrously rich offering, forgetting that fresh fruit does wonders. This can be augmented with perhaps a cheese and quite often turns out to be a far happier conclusion of the meal for all concerned.
Well worth exploring are fruit desserts that are nutritious, easy to prepare and after all is said and done are the perfect epilogue for a substantial main meal. When I lived in Europe many years ago, I observed that most Europeans used to serve fruit as a matter of course after every dinner. Somehow, this trend is greatly lacking in Uganda where fruits and vegetables are comparatively inexpensive in plenty!
The Italians arrange fruit in a dish and use these giadinettos or little gardens as they call them, as edible pieces. Well worth exploiting, too, are the virtues of fruit-either cup. Compote, salad or sherbet form- as a “lightener” during as well as after a big meal.
Giving your fruits a new life
In the event that fruits lack flavour, serve them or prepare them with candied peels, ginger, zest or spices; or feel free to add a little lemon or lime juice to cooked fruits and fruit fillings. Vary the flavours of a particular fruit by steeping it in the juices of other fruits or in wine, or by blending it with other in a puree. You are at liberty to glaze poached fruit with contrasting fruit jellies, especially those of apple and quince. These are high in pectin; or combine canned frozen and fresh fruits—cold or slightly heated—in what the French call a compote composee. Try presenting your “composed compote” in a giant lidded snifter, laced with brandy or liqueur, and serve it to guests in smaller individual snifters.
