ILLUSTRATION: ISTOCK
My father’s family were fruit and veg merchants. My childhood was spent gorging on produce from all over the world (albeit the slightly manky stuff that couldn’t be sold). One of my earliest memories is of creeping out of the house with my dad on a still-dark morning to accompany him to the Birmingham Wholesale Market. I watched, entranced, as a trader opened a box of apples, fresh from South Africa: cool, crisp and shiny. To my delight, he offered me one. I can still remember the taste, as sweet, crunchy and juicy as if it had just fallen from the tree.
It seemed like a miracle to the four-yearold me that an apple had come all the way from Africa. Today, gigantic container ships supply us with everything from bras to bananas and we think nothing of it. Thanks to international trade (something that’s been around for a while – ever heard of the Spice Route?), we can buy anything we want, whenever we want it. We should celebrate that. It’s a triumph of human endeavour, and our forlorn, beetroot-eating ancestors would have killed to have the kind of diversity in their diets that we can enjoy.