We’ve had tiger-striped tomatoes, purple French beans, golden beetroot, blue sweetcorn, blue potatoes, and now: black and golden yellow raspberries. Have you got an appetite for oddly coloured fruit?
‘Mac Blacks’ recently went on sale in Tesco. The retailer predicted that one day these black raspberries might be more popular than traditional reds – a month later they’re one of the supermarket’s best sellers.
Billing them as a so-called superfood and describing them as tasting like raspberry jam seems to have been a hit with shoppers.
Tesco’s now decided to follow them up with yellow ‘”champagne” raspberries – created due to the natural absence of red pigment. Again, these are said to be sweeter than their traditional red cousin, but will they tempt you?
Food’s about more than just looks
Of course, manipulating the colour of fruit and veg is nothing new – carrots were red or white until the 17th century, when the Dutch bred them to be orange in line with their national flag.
Unusually coloured fruit and veg are a novelty and fun to try, but as any grower or gourmet will tell you, there’s more to fruit and veg than looks.
Every year, Which? Gardening grows dozens of new fruit and veg varieties before the seeds go on sale to the public. A relatively small proportion of them will be given our coveted Best Buy status.
Appearance plays a part, but what our experts are really looking for is something that is really tasty, gives good yields and resists pests and diseases. Every year our experts find that some of the new varieties on sale don’t really offer much over old and established ones.
Taste, taste, taste
At the end of the day, a white carrot tastes like… well, a carrot. And a golden beetroot tastes like a beetroot. Purple French beans look attractive on the plant, but when cooked they turn a rather unpalatable shade of grey. Blue potatoes fade in colour when cooked.
Yellow courgettes, on the other hand, are less pappy then some green ones and hold their colour well when cooked – so personally I prefer them over the traditional green courgettes.
As for raspberries, we’ve grown them too, and done extensive taste tests with the public. Some varieties taste great and crop well; some don’t, regardless of their colour. If black or golden raspberries are to win over our hearts and minds in the future, they had better taste better than the best red ones…
Would you eat odd coloured fruit, like black raspberries?
Yes (68%, 311 Votes)
No (32%, 146 Votes)
Total Voters: 457
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