Last Chance Foods

Papalo may be a relatively unknown herb in the Northeast, but it is such a part of everyday food in the region around Puebla, Mexico, that many families and restaurants keep a bouquet of it on the table. That way people can add the fresh herb to their food as desired.

As hard as it might be to believe, fall officially starts in two weeks. That makes right now a great time to enjoy the last of the summer’s produce. While crops like tomatoes and melons have suffered more from Tropical Storm Irene and the recent deluges of rain, much of the season’s stone fruit is still intact.

About 25 years ago, Terhune Orchards in Salt Point, N.Y., received an unexpected gift. A family friend admired the orchard because it reminded her of her hometown in Northern France. Then, one year, she arrived with a cutting from a plum tree from France. That cutting has since grown into one of the only Mirabelle plum trees in the New York area.

Right now, farmers markets are bursting at the seams with fresh produce ranging from apricots to zucchini. Gabrielle Langholtz, the editor of Edible Manhattan and Edible Brooklyn magazines, said that she'd easily pass up all of that and beeline straight to the garlic, if she had to choose.

Cilantro, which also goes by the name of coriander, is an easily grown herb that can be added to many summer dishes. Chef Vikas Khanna, the chef at Junoon, says the herb is so essential to South Asian cooking that fruit and vegetable vendors in the Indian region of Punjab where he grew up give out free cilantro, along with chilies, with purchased vegetables.

Figs season in the New York area is in full swing. Ted Lee, who wrote the cookbook Simple Fresh Southern along with his brother Matt Lee, says that, in the South, the season for brown turkey figs is just now winding down. He explains that fig trees are common in the backyards of Charleston, South Carolina, where he grew up.

Wineberries: They look like tiny raspberries and you likely won’t find them at even the most well-stocked farmers' markets. Instead, these cousins to the raspberry can be found on a trip through the woods — or even through a city park.

In Brooklyn, it’s illegal for donkeys to sleep in bathtubs. It’s also against the law in New York to walk around with an ice cream cone in your pocket on Sunday or to wear slippers after 10 P.M. While these are some of the sillier examples of arcane laws leftover from bygone days, up until 2003, it was also illegal to cultivate black currants in New York state.

Some have said that the durian, a tropical spiky fruit in season through July, smells like a gym full of old socks or an unearthed cadaver. But others have called it the King of Fruits for its delicious, custard-y, flavorful flesh. All Things Considered Host Amy Eddings spoke with Francis Lam, the features editor for the Web site Gilt Taste (pictured below), for this week’s episode of Last Chance Foods about reasons to love and hate the durian.

There’s good news and bad news coming from Alaska and it doesn’t have anything to do with politics. First, the good news: it is wild salmon season. Wild salmon have just started to swim upstream to spawn and the fish are currently at their plumpest and tastiest. During their single-minded dash to reproduce, the salmon don’t eat and get skinnier as the season goes on.