One fruit I really miss from the US is blueberries, which I have yet to find in Ecuador, but besides that, we have all the common fruits you would find in the US--apples, oranges, blackberries, bananas (some of your bananas might actually be from Ecuador), mangos, mandarin oranges (in season now!), plums, and strawberries (there is no season--they are produced all year round!).
On top of those fruits, there are many others that are different, strange, and downright weird-looking. But hey, as long as they taste good, right? So here's a few of those random fruits, and I'll tell you about the rest next week.
Achotillo (Rambutan) - I was first introduced to this fruit in Nicaragua, where it's called mamon chino. The bright red prickly skin is cut or bit open to reveal a sweet, white flesh surrounding a large pit. When I first tried this fruit, it would take me a full 15 minutes to pry the flesh off of the pit by rolling it around in my mouth. I'm sure my Latino friends got a kick out of watching me as a gringa try to master the art of eating achotillo.
Taxo (Banana passionfruit) - it wasn't until some Cuban friends recognized this fruit from eating it in their homeland that I dared to try it. From the outside, taxo could easily be mistaken for a small, rounded banana, but once you cut it open, there are hundreds of juicy pods surrounding bitter seeds. The best way to eat it is in a batido (milkshake), but if you aren't careful and accidentally blend the seeds, it becomes a bitter drink.
Noni - I'd heard about the medicinal properties of this fruit before, but I didn't know it grew in Ecuador until a businessperson offered me some fruit from her backyard. When we picked it off the tree (pictured below), the fruit was still yellow-green, but within a day it turned completely white. I still don't know how to prepare or eat it (it's pretty bitter), but hey, maybe eating a few of these fruits lengthened my life :)
Maracuya (passion fruit) - after living in Central America, I absolutely love maracuya. It's one of those fruits that's intensely acidic and is best as a juice with lots of sugar, but I would even eat it straight out of the shell. Even when I'm back in the US, I can often find the juice in Salvadorean pupusa restaurants. If I had to guess, this is probably the fruit that I'll mot likely be able to eat for the rest of my life.
Granadilla (also called passion fruit) - of the unusual fruits of Ecuador, this is the one that I tend to buy the most. Although it looks a little like maracuya, granadilla is anything but acidic or sour. To eat it, you crack open the outer yellow-orange shell, then peel away the skin, and inside there are hundreds of black seed surrounded by grey capsules of sweet juice. It's a "crunchy" fruit due to the seeds which are eaten with the juice, and since the best way to eat it is by slurping out of the shell, it's also a noisy fruit to eat. But the noise and possible mess are all worth it.
So there are a few fruits for your culinary enjoyment, with more to come in a future post.
No comments:
Post a Comment