Northeastern Fruits

What the plate gets wrong

The picture was generated, and these are its errors of fact, checked against the kitchen and the Lexicon. Read the plate with them.

• Cranberries prints “Massachusetts, Wisconsin (N.E. border)”. Cranberries in the Northeast come from the bogs of Massachusetts and New Jersey, and Wisconsin, though it grows the most cranberries in the country, is a Midwestern state far from the Northeast. Wisconsin borders Michigan, Minnesota, Iowa and Illinois and touches no Northeastern state, so the printed N.E. border qualifier is false, while New Jersey's Pine Barrens bogs are the region's second producer.
• Cherries prints “New York, Michigan (N.E. border)”. Northeastern cherries come from New York and Pennsylvania, and Michigan is a Midwestern state that shares no border with the Northeast. Michigan borders Ohio, Indiana and Wisconsin, with Ohio between it and Pennsylvania, so the printed N.E. border qualifier is invented, while Pennsylvania's Adams County is a real cherry district on the plate's own map.
• Plums prints “New York, Michigan, Pennsylvania”. Plums in the Northeast come from New York, Pennsylvania and New Jersey orchards, and Michigan is a Midwestern state outside this plate's region. Michigan is not one of the twelve states on the plate's own map, while New Jersey grows plums in the same stone fruit belt as its peaches.
• Figs prints “California (N.E. regions), New York”. Figs are not a Northeastern farm crop; fresh figs on a Northeast menu come from California's Central Valley or are imported, and in New York the fig is only a backyard tree that must be wrapped or buried to survive winter. Northeastern California is cold high desert that grows no figs, so California (N.E. regions) is a garbled location, and the fig tree is not winter hardy in New York, so there is no commercial New York crop.
• Grapes prints “New York, Pennsylvania, Virginia”. Northeastern grapes come from New York (Finger Lakes, Lake Erie and Long Island), Pennsylvania (the Lake Erie Concord belt) and New Jersey, and Virginia is a Southern state outside the plate's region. Virginia does not appear on the plate's own map, which ends at Maryland, while New Jersey has an established grape and wine industry in the Outer Coastal Plain.
• Pomegranates prints “New Jersey, California (N.E. regions)”. Pomegranates are not a Northeastern crop; the ones on a Northeast menu come from California's San Joaquin Valley, harvested in the fall, and New Jersey has no commercial pomegranate orchards. The pomegranate needs long hot dry summers and mild winters that New Jersey does not have, and northeastern California is cold high desert with no pomegranate orchards, so both printed locations are wrong.
• Kiwi prints “New York, Pennsylvania”. The fuzzy brown kiwifruit pictured is a California crop or an import from New Zealand, Italy and Chile; the only kiwi grown in the Northeast is the small smooth skinned hardy kiwi, raised on a few farms in Pennsylvania, New York and New England. Fuzzy kiwifruit (Actinidia deliciosa) is not winter hardy in New York or Pennsylvania and has no commercial acreage there, while the grape sized hardy kiwi (Actinidia arguta) is a different fruit that does not match the plate's illustration.
• Citrus prints “Florida (N.E. coast), Southern states”. No citrus grows in the Northeast; the oranges, lemons and grapefruit on a Northeast menu are shipped in from Florida, California and Texas and are not a local Northeastern fruit. Citrus trees cannot survive Northeastern winters, and Florida's northeast coast is a Southern location, so the plate's own printed source confirms this is not a regional fruit.
• Persimmons prints “Virginia, Tennessee, North Carolina”. The large orange persimmons pictured are the Asian Fuyu and Hachiya types grown in California; only the small wild American persimmon reaches southern Pennsylvania and New Jersey, and the three states printed are all Southern states outside this plate's region. Virginia, Tennessee and North Carolina are not Northeastern states and do not appear on the plate's map, and the Asian persimmon (Diospyros kaki) illustrated is a California crop, not a Northeastern one.