Trout and vegan cream – my day sampling Wimbledon’s ‘woke’ food offering

Carlos Alcaraz is a delight to watch, and during the second set of his quarter-final with Cameron Norrie I make a startling discovery: Wimbledon do in fact sell avocados.

I’m not on Centre Court. My colleague is covering the match between the box-office defending champion and the last Briton standing while I slink through the shadows of the grounds’ main stage over to Parkside, where food and drink options are burrowed under Court One.

Ace. There they are: avocados. Delightfully smashed inside the £13 poke bowls on offer to spectators, likewise in the £9.20 “California Crab & Avocado Crunch” sushi.

Why the excitement about a popular superfood that has prevented millennials from getting onto the property ladder? Because I was led to believe they had been banned.

In the lead-up to Wimbledon, The Times revealed avocados had been replaced by crushed peas, prompting The Daily Mail to follow it up with a “Wimbledon BAN fan-favourite food from menu” headline.

The news even garnered a response from the World Avocado Organisation, who in a City AM follow-up claimed their favourite food was being made the “scapegoat in the conversation around food sustainability”.

Two issues. Firstly, there has clearly not been a blanket ban. Secondly, while crushed peas have made their way onto toast at Wimbledon, the All England Club informed me this is only on menus in some hospitality suites.

Hardly a fan favourite, then, if up in hospitality, where prices start at £1,025 for a culinary experience that goes with the tennis.

I know. This is just below The Salt Path levels of investigative takedowns, but at the very least, it is amusing, especially as I have never heard one spectator mention avocados across the eight different fortnights I’ve been here.

What fans do fall over for, of course, is strawberries with cream.

A staggering 2.5m were sold last year, and though a punnet has risen 20p to £2.70, they are comfortably the best pound-for-pound option on offer.

And get this, you can even cover them with vegan cream (whatever next!?), with the plant-based alternative an option since 2019 and available on request.

The well-known Elmlea brand uses a blend of lentil protein and plant oils for its vegan alternative, and it was before my avocado discovery that I made a beeline to try this, let’s face it, incredibly “woke” cream and give it a photoshoot on the broadcast balcony. Look at that drip.

The difference, apart from the mere 11 calories per 100ml (vegan being just less), was obvious from the pour.

The vegan cream came out like gloopy paint and stuck to the strawberries, while its streamy cow alternative merely tickled them before gathering at the bottom.

I asked/cornered a couple of reporters before the show-court action started to help with a blind taste test.

They were surprisingly enthusiastic, admiring my tenacity for covering Wimbledon’s biggest talking point (step aside, Hawk-Eye).

The first journalist, doing his best Liam Gallagher impression when fed, was already confident enough to predict after his first strawberry with mystery cream No 1, which he gave a 6/10 before handing strawberry with cream No 2 an 8/10.

The second journalist aptly described the cow-cream-covered strawberry as “creamy”, with both rightly distinguishing the difference.

It was also game, set, match for Team Cow when it came to taste preference.

The verdict, though, was not damning for No Cow.

I couldn’t fault its ability to stick so determinedly to the strawberries, and with a rich description that will strike fear into The i Paper’s food and drink writers, I would say it tasted rather nice, actually.

Also rather nice is the smoked trout, evidently, because I hadn’t even realised it wasn’t smoked salmon for nine days (it is by this point you are feeling sorry for me – won’t somebody think of the poor reporter mistaking his smoked fish?)

To get all Frank Lampard “haha, no but seriously…”, the trout is part of Wimbledon’s sustainability drive, with the Championships claiming to be the largest single annual sporting food and drink operation in Europe.

Since 2021, no ingredients have arrived by air freight, while Wimbledon’s own website is a treasure trove of food sourcing information.

Want to know where the salad leaves are from? You are in luck. They are from Evesham in Worcestershire.

The free-range chickens are from Sutton Hoo, the lamb from the Lake District, and the mackerel is Scottish (from Peterhead).

The trout are grown on the Test and Itchen rivers across three farms. The smoked trout is produced between the rivers Severn and Wye.

The strawberries are grown 31.5 miles away at Hugh Lowe Farms in Kent.

They are handpicked at sunrise and delivered by 9am the morning they are devoured, and come in seaweed-based packaging that is 100 per cent biodegradable.

It is a goliath operation. As for peas? Spectators not forking out thousands can find them in the relish of the baked sea bass dish for £21.65 at Cafe Pergola.

Otherwise, they are in Taking the Pea packets, a £3 offering which dries this avocado alternative into a crunchy snack. Admittedly, they too are rather nice.