After sitting on a tropical beach amongst palm trees last week, I returned to read the latest statistical performance in FPJ of our own so-called exotic produce market.

Last week I was among people who regard mangoes and coconuts in the same way that we view apples and pears. Local root vegetables mainly related to the yam are regarded as a versatile potato, even though they are unrecognisable to most tourists.

In such tropical climes however, I suspect, our everyday crops such as sprouts sold on the stalk might be mistaken for mini papaya trees and would certainly fit into the concept of exotic for many inhabitants of those regions.

For this reason alone, I have always been slightly worried about the use of the term exotic. At least when I worked at old Covent Garden anything new on the eye - let alone taste - was called “queer gear”. If not an exact science, it was at least all embracing.

The problem of course is that the boundaries are constantly changing, and not always simply descriptive of tropical produce. Twenty years ago, while visiting SIAL exhibition in Paris, a top chef was extolling to the French the virtues of parsnips - previously known to them merely as cattle fodder!

In the UK, avocados and kiwifruit were once regarded in the same light. Many retailers even believed that real volume sales would only come when the price dropped to a level where the public no longer considered the fruit a luxury.

The same pattern has emerged with pineapple, once considered such a luxury that it was carved on finials as a sign of welcome. Two hundred years later, there will not be many families who do not have the real thing gracing their fruit bowls.

The difference is that today the pace has quickened. Add the influence and interest of ethnic dishes and garnish with a sprinkling of cookery writers and broadcasters, and it is not surprising that the arrival of new varieties and products has been the result of a hidden race between multiple buyers to be first.

But this is only the first step -if consumer response is positive, the hunt will be on to provide year-round continuity.

It took 30 years for kiwifruit to become accepted as a standard line, but the boost from food fashions and healthy diets has added further impetus, typified by the boom in blueberry sales.

Indirectly, it could be argued that increasing volume overall is putting the first signs of pressure on traditional fruits led by apples, citrus and bananas, already facing their own problems with international over-production.

And in the 1970s, the Dutch, mindful of changing public tastes, toured the world for new products to be grown in The Netherlands. They came back with over 200 finds, mainly from the Far East.

One thing for certain is that, coupled with the scientists’ art of hybridisation, the description “exotic” will never die out.

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