Fresh fruit top-up - eat 'em while you can

In early June strawberries, then come the cherries in July, plums, blueberries and then raspberries; available everywhere - street corner fruit stalls, local shops, hypermarkets - and very cheap - prices as low as 6 zlotys (£1.30) a half-kilo punnet. It behoves us to eat them, indeed guzzle them in huge quantities, while they're here, to build up the immune system with natural vitamins before the onset of the darkness and the cold.

Full of Vitamin C, antioxidants and dietary fibre, raspberries are very healthy. And I am amazed to discover that Poland's the world's fourth largest producer of raspberries, just behind the USA.

Sold in deep papier-mâché punnets and with a short shelf-life, raspberries will often go mouldy from the bottom up. The consumer cannot see from the ones on the top what the bottom of the punnet looks like. I must say, that since Poland joined the EU, the quality of raspberries has improved, and the implementation of HACCP by fruit growers has meant one can fairly safely eat unwashed raspberries. If you wash them, they go off much more quickly. Other fruit I always wash - but raspberries rarely.

Above: A novelty on the market - punnets covered in cling-film. Stops customers picking at the content, but also I'd guess the greater humidity within the punnet leads to dampness and faster mould growth. I've picked out three mouldy raspberries; many more would be lurking beneath.

We're at the height of the season, but although prices will rise and there will be fewer street vendors selling them, we'll still have raspberries on sale until the first frosts of late autumn.

This time two years ago:
Molotov-Ribbentrop 70 years on