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"More than a year had gone by since Mr. Herbert’s visit and the only thing that was known was that the gringos were planning to plant banana trees in the enchanted region that Jose Arcadio Buendia and his men had crossed in search of the route to the great inventions."

Gabriel Garcia Marquez, One Hundred Years of Solitude, 1967

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British consumers in the twenty-first century enjoy the supposed benefits of what food writer Joanna Blythman termed ‘permanent global summertime’, which she defined as ..

"... the ability to purchase at the wholesale level certain fruits and vegetables from different parts of the world at different times of the year, thus enabling retailers to offer this produce either year round or for longer periods than their traditional local growing seasons ..."

As a consequence, not only do we get our native fruit varieties (apples, pears, etc.) all year round; we also get all manner of exotic fruit such as bananas, numerous varieties of citrus, mangoes, etc., from all parts of the world.

However, it would seem that the supply chain offer - whilst incredibly wide - is often focused more on factors such as uniformity, reliability, transportability, shelf life, and price than on attributes like taste and variety.

Over these two series (pears and citrus), I have been examining supermarket fruit with a view to exploring its essence, both visually and taste-wise.

Part 1 - Pears (after Charles Henry Jones)

Part 2 - Citrus (digital luminograms)

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