Rescued feijoas can help revive our childhood memories

A food rescue charity is encouraging people to donate surplus feijoas, saying the fruit can keep childhood memories alive while supporting those in need and minimising food waste.

Fair Food, a West Auckland-based charity, marks autumn with an annual appeal for people to give their excess feijoas to food rescue organisations instead of letting them rot or go to landfill.

Fair Food head of operations Tracey Watene says by donating, people are helping others “remember those childhood senses and memories from when they once had it in their own backyard”.

“Many of us grew up with one, two, or more trees so it has been a staple in our diets . . . However, in West Auckland in particular, there is a lot of development, so many trees that used to be there are no longer,” she says.

Donated feijoas go into food parcels distributed to Fair Food’s partners, which include food banks, domestic violence shelters, social services and community care centres.

“Being able to share someone's backyard bounty with someone else can create some wonderful memories. People take a particular food item, albeit a humble feijoa, and are reminded of all the good things in our lives.”

Journalist Kate Evans, author of Feijoa: A Story of Obsession and Belonging, says she spoke with a neuroscientist about how the smell of the fruit can “transport you back to childhood” through our autobiographical odour memory.

“Things that we smell can remind us of things in our past really strongly, and that effect is even stronger if it's something that we're first exposed to in childhood. The feijoa is kind of perfect at doing this.”

Evans says the feijoa also enhances whanaungatanga. Its seasonal abundance causes people to give surplus out at work, put free fruit boxes out on their street and donate to food charities.

The fruit has gained a strong social media presence too, with many people advertising surplus feijoas, sharing recipes and discussing husbandry.

The Feijoa Appreciation Group on Facebook has more than 62,000 members.

“They've become this kind of way of communicating and sharing with the people around us such as our neighbours and colleagues . . . and hardly any other fruit quite fulfil the same role,” says Evans.

Watene says Fair Food, like many charities, has a volunteer army that can harvest surplus fruit from people’s backyards and organisational properties when householders and staff are not able to pick it themselves.

It has also created a downloadable flyer that people can put in the letterbox of a neighbour with a full fruit tree which requests permission to pick their tree and donate the fruit to a local food bank.

“We’re really proud of the support that we get from our community but sometimes people just need a subtle reminder,” Watene says.

“Our message is that we have the people, we have the time. So, hey, give us the opportunity to come and harvest what you can't, or no longer require, and let us get that back out.”