Author Topic: Sometimes, you need to be prepared before you try a new fruit :)  (Read 2370 times)

Michiganian

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Sometimes, you need to be prepared before you try a new fruit :)
« on: December 07, 2013, 10:29:25 AM »
     I may have fallen in love with longan, jackfruit and mangosteen while I was in Thailand... but there was one fruit I tried that just seemed so different at the time that I'm not sure I really gave it a chance. I decided to look it up last night and I figured out what it was: The Makok Sapodilla (http://tinyurl.com/yekgsy)

     Perhaps the one I tried was not quite ripe yet, as they do pick a lot of their fruits early over there. Or perhaps it was the fact that in my mind, the color brown is associated with dried out old fruit that you wouldn't want to eat. It didn't look like any of the fruit I had grown up with, which I now realize was only a tiny sliver of what's actually available in the world. I am embarrassed that just for a moment, my "Silly Foreigner" face squeaked through.

     The fruit seller didn't speak English, but gladly offered me a sample fruit from his wares. He could not describe it to me before I bit in. I don't know exactly what I was expecting, but it certainly didn't taste like any apple, pear, or orange I had ever eaten. And then I did the worst thing possible... I pulled out a tissue from my pocket and spit the mouthful of fruit into it. Not wanting to insult the man further, I bought two huge bags of his mangosteen and was on my way back to the little village I was staying in.

     The lady with whom I was staying had once owned both a gas station and a 7-11, the remnants of which were still standing. The shelter that once stood over gas pumps had been converted into a shelter for picnic tables. The 7-11, a single room structure with one wall made completely of windows, ended up becoming my bedroom. My bed had once been a rickety old picnic table, but was cleaned up and adorned with a thin mattress pad, pillows and a blanket. A short walk next door would lead you to the bathroom... where I got to experience showering via a large stone jar filled with water, and a small plastic pan with which to rinse myself. -- Is it shocking that I actually really enjoyed this experience?  ;D

     It was at this place that I was introduced to another exotic fruit: The Rose Apple. This tree was growing just outside of my bedroom. I could open a small window on the left wall and reach my hand out to touch it. Though it was off season, her tree was bearing fruit. She had me retrieve a long stick with a basket on one end from her garage, and encouraged me to try and pick some.

     After hooking several into the basket, we sat down at a small stone table beneath the canopy of her fruit trees. I was probably expecting to taste something like a pear when I bit into this fruit, mainly because of its shape. The fact that it was pink just intrigued me. Sadly they weren't quite ripe yet either, and there was very little flavor as a result... but I didn't spit this one out.

     Will I ever eat another Makok Sapodilla or Rose Apple? I'm not a quitter. I think I would like to try them both again. Preferably when ripe.
~ Cassandra

plantlover13

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Re: Sometimes, you need to be prepared before you try a new fruit :)
« Reply #1 on: December 07, 2013, 10:42:31 AM »
I hereby command you to eat a ripe sapodilla.  ;D

Saps are one of my absolute favs, but you have to love SWEET! don't try to compare them to anything, they just taste like themselves!

I guess it's a lesson to be learned, don't try to compare the taste of anything to anything else before you eat it. I am guilty of the same thing, i foolhardily expected longans to taste similar to lychees. I almost spat it out cause they, you know, they dont. worse case of this for me hough, the one time i tasted mangosteen a couple years ago, i didn't like it because i couldnt find something to compare it to  >:( (still mad at myself for that.)

bangkok

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Re: Sometimes, you need to be prepared before you try a new fruit :)
« Reply #2 on: December 07, 2013, 11:11:27 AM »
I had exactly the same with sapodilla but didn't spit it out. They don't taste fresh and the brown color also ruins the party. They are sweet though but i still don't like them. When sellers let me taste their fruit i 'm just honest to them, if i don't like it i will tell so.

One day i was on a market and saw something very strange which was free for tasting. I put it in my mouth very carefull to find out it was some kind of sugar which was nice. The daughter of the sales-lady was laughing very loud because i was so carefull to try it.

Rose-apples always taste watery, on a very hot day i can eat them when they are chilled but i don't want to grow them. I even never bought them on the markets because they are not sweet enough and lack any flavour.

Longans and litchy are more my kind of fruit but longans are so small. I still have them in the fridge and am to lazy to start peeling them now.

I also will never forget my first shower in a bathroom like that. It was on koh phi phi island and there lived a huge crab behind the waterbucket. That crab liked to come out of his home at nite and one morning i met him in that bathroom, i have never woken up so fast as then. ::)

You don't have to be ashamed for your behaviour in Thailand, the Thai themselves won't eat anything that they don't know.

I still can't understand how people can be fond of longkong, they taste terrible to me. Also tamarind is not made for me.

But it is always a good experience to travel a lot and see how other people live and can be happy in their homes which are of a totally different standard then in the western world. If the temperatures are always high then anything can be a home. People in Thailand have rural lives with very good times and also bad times. Things can change pretty fast here. The funny thing is that they all can sleep on a stone floor or sit on that for many hours (all day) without a pillow. When they visit our house with all leather lazyboys they still want to sit on the floor  :o





KarenRei

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Re: Sometimes, you need to be prepared before you try a new fruit :)
« Reply #3 on: December 07, 2013, 11:26:21 AM »
I'm also in the don't-like-sapodilla club. Overly sweet and there's some sort of weird taste that comes with it, something like red cabbage. And those seeds scare me a bit. Never tried a rose apple but yours and bangkok's description sounds pretty much like 90% of the descriptions I've read online - juicy and not much else. I don't know which langsat variety I've had, but unlike bangkok, I love them. Tastes sort of like grapefruit, except good (I don't normally like grapefruit), in the package of a husked grape that looks like a potato  ;)  And tamarind, for me it depends on what it's used in, it needs to be a dish that could use a "sweet-and-sour" flavor. It's a bit raisin-ish, but stronger. When used right, it's really good (IMHO).

Dare I mention the most divisive fruit of all, durian?  ;)  I'm solidly in the "I-Swear-That-All-Of-You-Who-Say-You-Like-It-Are-Trying-To-Trick-Naive-Suckers" camp   ;) But at least half the people on this board seem to love it. Another divisive one (albeit with less passion) seems to be persimmon (don't like it either). Oh, and papaya (I keep falling for that one, it just *looks* so tasty...)

BTW, out of curiosity: because I don't like persimmon, am I doomed to not like black sapote also?  Likewise, is it possible that one who doesn't like papaya would a Vasconcellea/formerly-Carica species?

Quote
the one time i tasted mangosteen a couple years ago, i didn't like it because i couldnt find something to compare it to

Eh, it's hard to think of *a* thing to compare it so, but I can picture combinations that aren't too far off... like "peach-vanilla citrus" with a texture like a seedless kiwi.

Ugh, now I'm really craving mangosteen. Langsat too.  :(  My favorite thai grocery store's shipper forgot to send both this week.  :Þ
« Last Edit: December 07, 2013, 11:49:32 AM by KarenRei »
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nullzero

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Re: Sometimes, you need to be prepared before you try a new fruit :)
« Reply #4 on: December 07, 2013, 11:57:28 AM »
My first experience with a sapodilla was a underipe one. That was chalky tasting and horrible experience. I then waited for the next one to be completely soft like an avocado. Much better this time, though very sweet. The third one I tried I took out a lime and squeezed a generous amount of juice on the sapodilla slices.

This one tasted great to me and had more balanced sweetness to my liking. After that I decided it was worthy fruit to grow, and soon after purchased a Silas Woods sapodilla. Btw, Wax Jambu>Rose apple at least for me.
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Michiganian

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Re: Sometimes, you need to be prepared before you try a new fruit :)
« Reply #5 on: December 07, 2013, 12:52:09 PM »
plantlover13, I do love sweet! So much so that as a kid... I would eat straight up sugar cubes and chew on stalks of sugar cane (when I could find them).  I promise the next time I come across a ripe sapodilla, I will eat it without prejudice!  ;D Maybe I'm lucky that I tried longan first. I still haven't found any lychee to taste. And as for mangosteen! My initial thought process on that fruit was... this looks nothing like a mango, so why the heck do they call it mangosteen? But then I tasted it and it was so tangy and sweet, with a flavor that was powerfully strong. It just hooked me. And yeah, I don't know that there is any other flavor out there that you can really compare that to.

bangkok, I wonder if crunching on a miracle berry before eating a rose apple would help improve flavor at all. I haven't tried longkong or tamarind yet either. Actually, the list of fruits that I have tried is much shorter than those I have not.

I also will never forget my first shower in a bathroom like that. It was on koh phi phi island and there lived a huge crab behind the waterbucket. That crab liked to come out of his home at nite and one morning i met him in that bathroom, i have never woken up so fast as then. ::)
Oh boy! :o I probably would have woken up really quick, too! The only critters I had in my bathroom were a couple of frogs that liked to sleep in the toilet paper roll. You know what I miss? Those little gecko lizards that climb all over the walls. I thought they were really fun to watch. -- I am still trying to convince everyone in my house here that we need to convert all our bathrooms to Thai bathrooms.  8)

Karen, I have tried durian! I had wanted to try it while I was over there, but it wasn't in season when I was in Thailand. Luckily, I found a frozen one at my local Asian market last spring. I prepared myself for the strong smell, and was able to get past that to really taste the fruit. Even though I've only had frozen/thawed durian, it turns out I think I really like the flavor. Unfortunately, I was forbidden to ever bring another one into the house. ;) Everyone was running around holding their noses, then burning candles to try and get rid of the smell. Hehe.  ;D I've added a few more fruits to my "must try" list now because of this thread. :)

nullzero, I think that describes what I went through with my first taste of sapodilla. Chalky, yucky. I'll have to remember to let them go soft and have some lime on hand when I hopefully come across some in the future.
~ Cassandra

LEOOEL

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Re: Sometimes, you need to be prepared before you try a new fruit :)
« Reply #6 on: December 07, 2013, 03:07:03 PM »
The thing with the sapodilla fruit, is that it has to be picked off the tree at the correct time, and this is not an easy thing to do, one must have a keen eye. Then, in about 2-3 days, it will be ripe when soft to the touch. If this process has been followed correctly, when the sapodilla fruit is cut in half, the flesh inside will be of high quality, and will taste refreshingly sweet and delicious. I love sapodillas (nispero), and when the edible fruit quality is as I've mentioned, I just can't get enough of them. I have to admit it, I'm addicted to them.

Unfortunately, sometimes sapodillas are picked off the tree before their time (green/unripe), and then by the time they become soft, the flesh inside the fruit has little or no quality, or even rotten. Then, when a person tastes it for the first time, then all sapodilla fruits get a bad rap.

I have a tree of a variety that I know as 'Prolific.' The fruit are of high quality and large, the size of a medium sized grapefruit. The tree responds well to fertilizer. Although, the production is not as heavy as I'd like.

My 'Hasya' sapodilla recently bore fruit of good quality, but I was disappointed that the fruit size is nowhere near the size of 'Prolific.' So, my search continues for a giant sized sapodilla with reliable and heavy, yearly production.

I've heard of sapodillas in South America with the size of an avocado! Since it takes a long time for these exotic fruits to arrive at my location, it looks like it's up to me to take care of business and go get it/them myself. I guess if you want something done right, many times you just have to do it yourself.
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Re: Sometimes, you need to be prepared before you try a new fruit :)
« Reply #7 on: December 07, 2013, 04:50:21 PM »
Unripe sapodilla has a terrible taste, like the fruit is protecting itself from being eaten too early. At ripe stage they are incredibly sweet, and taste to me like brown sugar. You sometimes even find little sugar crystals inside the fruit. If anything their problem is they are too sweet, i think the word is cloying. I don't like to eat too many of them on their own, just because they are so incredibly sweet. But they are excellent mixed with other fruits, like in a fruit salad.
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