Sunday, July 22, 2001
Kiwi raises a question:
This fruit is delicious, so why aren't more of us aren't eating it?
By 1:By Chuck Martin
The Cincinnati Enquirer
Something I haven't seen in the supermarket produce section is bugging me: Maybe people are shy, maybe they're surreptitious — but never, ever, do I see anyone buying kiwi fruit.
Oh, there are plenty of kiwi available — boxes of the brown, fuzzy, egg-shaped fruit nesting in cartons near the limes and lemons. Several kiwi always appear to be missing from the box, so someone must be buying them.
Actually, plenty of people do. Consumption of kiwi fruit has more than quadrupled since 1985 — to about 152 million pounds a year, according to the U.S. Dept. of Agriculture. That's even more impressive considering kiwi weren't widely available in the United States 25 years ago.
The jade green, black-seeded kiwi fruit burst on the scene in the late 1970s, becoming the new darling of nouvelle cuisine and a nearly ubiquitous garnish. Many home cooks learned to use kiwi fruit from The Silver Palate Cookbook, (Workman; $15.95) published in 1979. The authors of the popular book used kiwi fruit in minted fruit salads, dessert tarts and white sangria.
Suddenly, kiwi were everywhere and it was mostly because of Frieda Caplan. In 1962, a customer at a Los Angeles supermarket asked for the little-known Chinese gooseberry. The market manager called Ms. Caplan, president of a small specialty produce company. She found the unusual fruit growing in New Zealand and began importing it.
The next year, at the suggestion of a produce broker, Ms. Caplan began marketing the Chinese gooseberry as kiwi fruit, because of its association with New Zealand and its resemblance to the fuzzy kiwi bird. Fruit history was made.
“It was the first new fruit introduced to the Americas since the banana,” says Karen Caplan, president of the Los Angeles company now called Frieda's Inc., and daughter of the company's founder. “And it made Mom an icon in the industry.”
Convincing supermarkets to carry the weird little fruit wasn't easy — not only was it brown and fuzzy, it was bright green inside. And how were people supposed to eat it? Would there be anything left after carving off its hairy hide?
After relentlessly campaigning for 18 years, Frieda succeeded in getting the kiwi fruit distributed nationwide by 1980.
“We like to call it the longest overnight success story in history,” Karen says.
And for the record, although less involved with her company, Frieda is alive, well and eating kiwi in California.
Of course, this doesn't mean the Caplans, the other kiwi marketers and growers are satisfied. The U.S. kiwi fruit supply (California grows about 80 percent of the country's kiwi fruit; New Zealand ships in most of the rest) and consumption peaked in 1993. Karen Caplan believes kiwi would sell better if more stores sold the fruit as a “speciality” item instead of a “mainstream” item.
“My epiphany came at the gym (in Los Angeles) one day when I met a woman who had never eaten a kiwi fruit,” she says. “Not everyone knows what kiwi fruit are.”
If kiwi are sold as a specialty item, Ms. Caplan says, more people will try kiwi fruit and buy them again.
She and the other kiwi people still are fighting the battle over how to best eat a kiwi. Instead of peeling the little fruit, kiwi marketers suggest “slooping” it — slicing the kiwi in half and scooping out the flesh with a spoon. For use in salads and desserts, a recommended method is to cut off both ends of the kiwi and run a spoon around, inside the fruit to disengage it from the skin. (Kiwi fruit skin, by the way, is perfectly edible and provides extra fiber and nutrients.)
Kiwi also suffers from that overexposed '80s image as the trendy garnish.
“We do need to make the transition from the kiwi as the plate ornament and garnish,” says Karin Gardner, communications manager for Zespri, the marketing arm for New Zealand kiwi fruit growers.
The kiwi people hope more people will eat the fruit when they realize kiwi fruit are a good source of nutrients. Loaded with potassium and vitamin C, a 1997 Rutgers University study ranked kiwi fruit as the most “nutrient-dense” fruit.
Kiwi promoters also are pushing the relatively new “gold” kiwi fruit, usually available June through September, which has a smoother skin and a less tangy flavor than its green cousin.
Maybe when gold kiwi fruit take off, I'll actually see people put them in their grocery carts.
Minted Fruit Salad
1 pint strawberries
3 kiwi fruit
1 medium cantaloupe
1 medium honeydew
Handful fresh mint leaves
1/2 cup fresh orange juice
1/4 cup fresh lemon juice
3 tablespoons sugar
Wash, drain and hull strawberries. Peel kiwis and slice thinly, reserving one sliced kiwi fruit as garnish. Using melon-baller, cut balls from cantaloupe and honeydew melons.
Mix all fruit together except for reserved kiwi. Chop mint finely and sprinkle on fruit. Mix orange and lemon juice with sugar and pour over fruit. Toss salad gently and thoroughly.
Arrange reserved sliced kiwi on top of salad and garnish with a fresh mint leaf. Chill 2 to 3 hours and serve cold.
— Silver Palate Cookbook
Green Kiwi fruit Zinger
Process kiwi fruit and ginger in blender or processor until pureed but kiwi fruit seeds are not broken. Add cranberry juice and pulse until mixed. Pour over ice, add vodka if desired and garnish with mint. Makes 1 to 2 drinks.
Kiwi raises a question: