Rhubarb from the mysterious Rhubarb Triangle in Yorkshire? Although I think this already has a PDO . . .

Cheese is a bit odd I think. Why can Stilton only be made in Derbyshire, Notts and Leicestershire?

Mysterious is right - loads of rhubarb comes out, but none ever seems to go in ...

Hmmm. I think most tomatoes picked straight off the plant taste pretty damn good, and since I don't buy tasteless tomatoes at all then I'm not sure I'm with the argument here for singling out the Isle of Wight. Their garlic's pretty good too, but then again so are other areas. The best tomatoes I've tasted are jointly from the Lady nationwide's allotment and her garden.

But here's a relevant question. That "smell" of fresh vine tomatoes doesn't, as we know, come from the fruit itself, it's from the vine stalks, which Heston Blumenthal popped into a chili the other week "for extra flavour". Given that tomatoes are part of the nightshade family, this means that the stalks and leaves may contain traces of atropine and tomatine which are, um, slightly poisonous.

UK asparagus can't be beaten. Just delicious. Further afield, my vote for protected status goes to apricots from central Otago, New Zealand. The climate there is perfect and the fruit are absolutely delicious: juicy and fragrant. Mmmmmmmmmmm.

Foie gras from Périgord is delicious

Right, I'm going to exploit this opportunity to vent on the predisposition among chefs and food writers, including on the Guardian, to insist on overpriced Maldon sea salt in recipes. Sodium choloride is sodium chloride. It doesn't matter what size the crystal is before it's ground or if it's ground at all and it doesn't matter from which part of all the world's oceans it was lifted to end its billennia of circumnavigation. All that matters is that it's free from contaminants.

There. Suffolk asparagus is the best I've tasted, at least compared to the stuff transported under cellophane for a day and a half before sitting on a supermarket shelf. Floridian mangoes.

Many tomatoes on offer are grown in water and with the aid of artificial light and with nutrients are added to the water! Hydroponic is the name for this type of horticulture. They lack taste and smell. But the plants are much more productive.
Can't beat the smell and taste of a "properly" cultivated tomato.

Mac cheese from my mum. Delicious.

Poland do a lovely Battery Hen for "Country Dinners".

None, its just a branding exercise to raise prices/profits.

Asparagus from Formby. The best there is.

Sodium chloride is sodium chloride but table salt isn't 100% sodium chloride. It's the impurities which alter the taste, and it's not all lifted from the sea.

Turkey Twizzlers should only be sold as such if produced within 300 km of the Bosporous.

Its not just taste but texture. In Australia we have beautiful pink Murray river salt. Soft melting crumbly flakes......

Australia = best cup of coffee you can get

Iranian Caviar, Saffron & Pistachio. You just have not lived if you have not tasted Persian cuisine. Truely majestic!

But they haven't yet got the recognition they want for the tomatoes - one of them said they wanted the island to be as famous as Jersey is for its potatoes.

This confusing me. Isnt a Jersey potato a variety of potato? It is easily protected because both the variety and growing area can be defined (Whether it should be is a different matter I guess). What do these IoW growers want protecting? Crappy bland tomatoes are grown on the Isle of Wight as well as good tomatoes. Surely IoW tomatoes could only be protected if there was but one variety grown on the island.

Btw if the company mentioned by Thring want a bit more recognition, they might want to put together a website with a bit more pizazz. It looks like an off the shelf job from 2002.

Oh yeah, magical salt! Containing various tiny amounts of other minerals that humans posses no taste receptors for. The magical salt from Atlantis is particularly nice.

Isn't it something to do with Jersey being further south though? So Jersey potatoes are 'special' because they are the earliest British potato, and also they use that particular variety, I think?

On a slightly different track, Sainsburys seem to think you can only buy their 'special' Anya potatoes in Sainsburys. Which may well be the case if you don't have access to any mud.

Strawberries from Cheddar

I wonder just how many people can really taste the difference between tomatoes that come from the Isle of Wight and, say, Kent or Worcestershire? Not many if we are honest. What about Red Leicester from Leicestershire or from Essex?

Next thing they'll be saying you can taste the diffenrece between different types of red wine or beer.

I wonder whether this article might have been sponsored by a tomato grower from the Isle of Wight?

Can you buy Australian coffee outside Australia?

According to the Australasian Specialist Coffee Assoc. there were only ca. 750 hectares of coffee grown in Australia in 2008. Compared to the 12 million hectares grown Worldwide that is truly a drop in the ocean.

Danish bacon from the pigfarms of Poland, tastes better than ever. Those refrigeration lorries sure enhance the flavour.

Outstanding on the hills nothing comes finer than the lamb from Wharfedale.

Next thing they'll be saying you can taste the difference between different types of red wine or beer.

Surely not!

Danish bacon from the pigfarms of Poland, tastes better than ever

Please tell me you're trolling? Those places are hell on earth.

http://action.ciwf.org.uk/ea-action/action?ea.client.id=119&ea.campaign.id=14667

As far as I know you can't buy any of those in the EU since the Iranian banks were disconnected from the international network.

Toadstools from my fridge.

Damsons from the Lyth valley in the former county of Westmoreland. When in flower in spring, the trees light up the landscape.

http://www.lythdamsons.org.uk/thedamson.htmll

The fruits have a fabulous colour and flavour and make the best jam and chutney.

Yorkshire puddings from... YORKSHIRE!

That "smell" of fresh vine tomatoes doesn't, as we know, come from the fruit itself, it's from the vine stalks, which Heston Blumenthal popped into a chili the other week "for extra flavour". Given that tomatoes are part of the nightshade family, this means that the stalks and leaves may contain traces of atropine and tomatine which are, um, slightly poisonous.

I wondered about that as well. I love the smell of the vine stalks and for flavour, I'd quite like to try using them in soups, stews, etc. But practically everything I've ever read on the matter suggests they are poisonous and best avoided. Still, Heston seems still to be going strong, so presumably it can't be all that dangerous?

Does anyone have any good info on the safety or otherwise of cooking with tomato stalks?

Watercress from Alresford?

The Watercress Festival

its irony, humour.......

What's that got to do with the price of fish? For your information, I think the fact that "the Iranian banks were disconnected from the international network" is a good thing. The proceeds of anything exported from Iran goes into the pockets of the Mullahs. What is bad for the Mullahs is good for Iranians. However, here I am only referring to the food not international trade.

From my side of the world - Zambales mangoes, officially the sweetest in the world, with a short season of only 2-3 months but a HUGE glut as practically all the trees in the province bear fruit at the same time; and Cebu lechon, often considered the world's best roast pork.

Both from the Philippines.

Red, pink and white cherries from Moldova

its irony, humour.......

Whoops - I see that now, especially as he goes on to talk about lamb from the hills. I was a bit hasty. Soz about that.

Spam.

Locally grown nettles and ramsons. They are available in abundance and completely free, yet remain underrated, probably something to do with the lack of an advertising budget.

No, with salt triggering one of the tongue's principal taste receptors, the homeopathic quantities of impurity, if they were not to be toxic, could not possibly compete with the saltiness of salt to register.

Good question, I'm not sure. Most of the coffee served in the cities is not locally (australian) grown but damn, the preparation is second to none. However you can get really good Queensland and northern nsw grown coffee and it's fabulous but it's not grown on anything like the scale it is in other countries.

Like i said, it's just taste but texture

Lincolnshire Sausages!

My intentions were simple. Just to say you can't find them in the shop. They may be the best in the World but we cannot share your passion for them.

Do you eat it on its own?

They go nuts about Bluff oysters in NZ:

http://www.bluff.co.nz/oystering.html.

They taste like oysters. I think it's more about the excitement of having the first of the season, like the Beaujolais Run.

BTW that photo, it's just wrong; a greengrocer's is not a playground.

*NOT* just taste

I love the smell of the vine stalks and for flavour, I'd quite like to try using them in soups, stews, etc. But practically everything I've ever read on the matter suggests they are poisonous and best avoided. Still, Heston seems still to be going strong, so presumably it can't be all that dangerous?

I roast toms on the vine this must also be classified as cooking with them.

I think the Feo (Ugly) tomato of Tudela is worth mentioning. They certainly are ugly, but also delicious.

http://www.embajadadelahuerta.com/2011/07/tomate-feo-de-tudela-la-parada-de-los.html

Links please re taste receptors - you're on shaky ground as the accepted model is errant nonsense.

The levels of impurities we're talking about aren't homoeopathic - there was a piece in the Mail recently lambasting posh salt users for their devotion to a product which can contain 10% or more impurities (if I wasn't so darn hungry I'd ferret out the link)