Shesek

• Are shesek medlars or loquats? Opinion differs. The smooth-skinned oblong fruits, the yellow of a blush-free apricot and about half the size, each have about three, smooth, flat, brown, dime-sized seeds. Their flesh is like a cherry’s and not quite as sweet.
• In April, when the first appeared in the shouk, they cost so much the prices mostly were quoted for half a kilo (a little more than a pound). As they came into full season, they filled fruit stands and the price declined to five shekels a kilo (about 40 cents a pound). Now, their season almost over, they are rare again, but the price stays low because other soft fruit catches our fancy.
• Sweet cherries lie in mounds, expensive for the shouk at the low price Sentry sets in Wisconsin in June to pull customers into the store. Fresh green figs were eighteen shekels a kilo the day before Shavuot, when customers were shoulder to shoulder and the stall keepers were too busy to call out their prices. Sweet, blushing apricots are six or seven shekels a kilo – the best ones are sold only in thin plastic baskets that hold more than a kilo. Peaches (both white and yellow), are in abundance, as are nectarines (both white and yellow), plums (Santa Rosa and Formosa), melons (green, yellow and water), mulberries – our love for shesek is gone until next year.
• About the Mahaneh Yehuda shouk in Jerusalem, see also http://jerusalemblog.blogspot.com/2006/06/abundance.html and http://jerusalemblog.blogspot.com/2006/07/lychees-figs-peaches.html and http://jerusalemblog.blogspot.com/2006/02/unexpected-february-entertainment.html

Copyright 2006 Jane S. Fox