Wednesday 29 August 2007

Unidentified fruit #2

We are in Veracruz, and have eaten this which struck my eye back in Xalapa- at a glance it looks like some sort of cheap plastic toy. It about 15cm long, with a smooth and rubbery neon pink skin that has a few greenish flaps- like larger versions of the ones you find on each diamond of a pineapple:
When I asked what it was like they said "like a kiwi" which seemed implausible, but I get what they mean
now!

The flesh below the skin is edible in its entirety; this fruit has the architecture of a Cadbury's Creme Egg. It is made for scooping- it is solid enough not to slosh out, and can be carved with precision. Yet it is unbelievably juicy- the seeds you can see are not even a blip on the textural radar. It is not jelly like. There are no fibrous bits to get stuck in your teeth.


The taste is sweet, but not very sweet. In fact, pretty much like a kiwi, except with slightly heavier banana overtones. The size pretty much trumps kiwi too, and the colour beats the colour of practically every other food I know.

Earlier I said that there were no fruits left in the world that were worthy of discovery. I fully take that back. With optimism. This is great.

1 comment:

Unknown said...

That's a dragon fruit. Very common out in Taiwan / China, I also spotted them in the UK in Waitrose at a rather silly price.