How to choose and cook raspberries?

When to buy raspberries?

In France, the raspberry begins to produce at the end of June and comes to pick the July grapes. It abounds in Corrèze and Rhône-Alpes, but Ile-de-France is not left out. Among the best seasonal varieties, Meeker has excellent performance. Among the remontant raspberries, that is to say those which flower late, the Autumn Bliss and the Héritage appear on the market stalls from mid-August, sometimes persisting until the first frosts of October .

The benefits of raspberries

Not very sweet, raspberries are above all very light in terms of calories with 49.2 kcal/100g. It contains vitamin C, E and P, potassium in abundance and fiber which facilitates transit (however, for those with fragile intestines, we recommend consuming it as a slurry passed through a fine sieve). Finally, it is rich in antioxidants.

How to choose the right raspberries?

Like any red fruit, raspberries are delicate and do not last more than two or three days. Most producers therefore only pick on demand and deliver fresh products just in time. Avoid crushed fruits, which will rot at the bottom of the container: in fact, raspberries cannot tolerate humidity. Choose them fleshy and ripe, because they do not flourish after picking. Please note that some European producers take advantage of the fact that raspberries tolerate freezing perfectly to try their luck out of season on the French market. Its main fault being fragility, it is picked prematurely in order to better withstand the shocks of travel. Despite its beautiful table fruit appearance, the result will prove very disappointing when tasting. Good advice: rely on raspberries produced in the surrounding area: they will have been picked when ripe and will not have been too disrupted by transport. In addition, they will benefit from an excellent carbon footprint.

Should you wash raspberries?

You should definitely not pass them under water. The producer even covers his raspberries with tunnels to protect them from the rain. Indeed, as soon as the fruit is in contact with humidity, it becomes waterlogged, becomes moldy and loses its flavors. Don’t worry, the raspberry undergoes almost no phytosanitary treatments and weeding is done manually. In this regard, there is no public health risk.

How to cook raspberries?

In summer fruit pie, jam, compote, coulis, crumble, sorbet, ice cream, cake, pavlova, cheesecake, raspberry goes with everything! It can be cooked alone or with other seasonal fruits such as strawberries, or stone fruits: peaches, apricots, nectarines, or nectarines. It also works wonders savory to liven up meat, or combined with feta in sweet and sour summer salads.