Adelaide Central Market- New Surprises!

I’ve been going to the Adelaide Central  Market for the past 30 years, and recently decided to pay another visit- mainly to re-acquaint myself with the sights and smells of this wonderful farmer’s market and to see if there was any new unusual produce or product that would jolt me out of my culinary complacency.

The Adelaide Market has been going since 1869 and can still thrill its visitors with its wide variety of fruits, vegetables, pastries, cheeses, meat and fish (to name a few). Although I’ve scrounged around many food markets in Paris- professed to be the ‘food capital of the world’- I still think that the Adelaide Central Market is one of the best in the world.

Wandering up and down the market isles armed with my camera, here is a snapshot of some of my discoveries.

If I was hoping to find something that would force me to do a double-take, here it was, Crocodile Tail Fillet, found at ‘Something Wild.’

Not quite ready to experiment with Crocodile Fillet in one of my tasty dishes, I decided to wander over to the ‘Smelly Cheese’ stall to have a look at their luscious-looking candied Italian Clementines. Clementines are a type of mandarin orange and I can picture crowning some vanilla ice cream with several of these lovely balls. (Although it seemed rather odd viewing these sweet treats in a place named Smelly Cheese)!

Next it was on to Providore bakery. I remember munching on their cheesy spanakopitas 30 years ago while I took a lunch break from teaching dance at the Centre for the Performing Arts, located just next door. Then a modest little bakery, the Providore now boasts delicacies such as Semolina Cakes, French Macarons, Fancy Lollipops and Death by Chocolate Cake.

Now feeling a little depressed that I could no longer fit into the leotards from my previous life as a modern dance teacher, I then sauntered over to Prettejohn’s Nursery stall where I eyed their pretty Ornamental Chili plants. The sign on the plant says the chilis are edible but at this point, I’d rather enjoy the beautiful colors of the plant, rather than eating them.

Now that I was on a ‘red hot chili pepper roll’, I decided to check out the pimentos that were on sale at the local Organics stall. These pimentos are described as a variety of  chili pepper, with a flesh more sweet and succulent than a red bell pepper’s. Next time I make my spaghetti bolognese, I’ll try using a pimento instead of a red bell pepper, to see if it makes any difference in taste.

 

 Attracted to their exotic fruits and vegetables on display, I next wandered over to Coco’s Fruits and Vegetables and feasted my eyes on their Dragon Fruit, Kimono Fruit and Egg Fruit.

 

Finding the Achacha Fruit

However for me, the find of the day was the tropical Achacha fruit. This fruit is typically grown in the tropical Amazon Basin of Bolivia and is now grown in North Queensland, Australia. When you ‘pop’ open the fruit, a wonderful white ‘snowball’ fruit appears, with a taste that is sort of a cross between a mango and an apple. This fruit would be great in a tropical salad or perhaps Achacha Ice Cream should be the recipe for my next post? Bon appetit!