i dont understand why passion fruit is not more popular

[fruitlovers]

You are probably right, Oscar, about the cheesecake.  I guess my idea of a fruit reaching excellent status is somewhat dependent on its being able to be enjoyed out of hand and without too much processing.  Oranges are great out of hand and for juicing, the juice to be used as an enhancer in other things.  Sour Sop (guanabana)...the good ones at least.....great flavor, very poor to eat out of hand.  So maybe I am putting an unnecesary stipulation into the definition of a good eating fruit, but that's the way my brain works.  Raspberries and blackberries also fall into this category.  Love raspberry flavoring/juice or backberry wine or other preparations, but the fruits I would never eat out of hand.  Too many damned seeds.  I guess I just have a sensitivity to it.  I'm the guy that always finds stuff in my food when out at a restaurant.  So far, I have found a staple, wooden skewer, glass, plastic from a shattered container in the kitchen, that pit hiding in the pitted cherry, or that wayward chicken bone in the bonelss breast of chicken always seems to find me.  For me, a fruit with abundant, juicy and nicely textured flesh, like a smooth fiberless mango makes that fruit elevate into super-stardom.  Or maybe I just have a sensitivity that everyone else thinks is silly and I should just get over it, enjoy the taste of the fruit and spit the seeds out or swallow them!

Harry

Hi Harry, i tend to be the same way as you: prefer the fruits that can be eaten straight off the tree or vine, cause i'm usually too lazy to prepare foods that take much time in the kitchen. My wife makes the cheese cakes, not me!  I think everybody has their own preferences and their own quirks, and these even change with the same person as years roll along. If the passionfruit seeds bother you no need to force yourself to eat/spit them, just filter them out with wire mesh. Lots of people don't like mangos because they say they are too messy, fibrous, seed is too large, fruit is too big, peel is too thick, smell weird, taste like turpentine, give me a rash, ok you get the point! 
Oscar

[fruitlovers]

Passion fruit (maracuja) comes in many varieties.  In Brazil, maracuja is consumed all over the country in many different ways.  Yellow variety - Juices; ice creams; popsicles; pudins; pies; cakes; mixed with sugar cane liquor (batida); cooked with fish; Jellies; Jams.....and many other ways
Purple variety - all the above plus eaten of hand
Maracuja Acu(assu)/maracuja doce (passiflora alata) -  Eaten as a desert fruit - It is sickning sweet
Harri Lorenzi's book has photos of several different varieties.

Besides eating the pulp, you can make flour out of the rind.  In Brazil, you can buy maracuja flour in health food stores - People trying to lose weight mix the flour with food and end up eating less. The flour has lots of natural pectin.
Leaves and flowers are used to make tea.  Maracuja tea is used as a natural sleep aid.  Try  mixing maracuja tea with lemon grass tee.  You may fall asleep before you finish drinking it.

I grow yellow maracuja and maracuja doce (sweet).  I am used to this fantastic fruit.  One of the best fruits in my opinion. Today, I harvested several fruits from my vines...love them!

Saw lots of giant yellow passionfruits in boxes at Rio de Janeiro wholesale produce market. Amazing size:

Yes that is regular Passiflora edulis var. flavicarpa. Brazil is a must see for any fruit lover! The people there really appreciate fruits. Practically every place i stayed at served fruits for breakfast and had an amazing assortment to choose from. Get me back to Brazil! (Only down side is their money is worth something and ours isn't, so you won't get much bang for your lousy dollar.)
Oscar

[stressbaby]

LL,
I really like passionfruit, but the reason Jay and I will never grow them is the growth rate and habit.  I grew McCain and another for some time and literally half the time spent in the GH was spent cutting back the beast.  Maybe in a less confined area, but for us it is not worth the work or space.

[North_Tree_Man]

I love passion fruit, and guava for that matter. I eat as many passion fruit and guava based things that I can whenever I visit Hawaii. Also, we drink Guava juice on a regular basis here...not orange juice. I do agree with the seeds being a pain though. I still remember hiking on some trails in Hawaii, and having the fresh scent of guava wafting around the trail from some fallen fruit nearby...heaven!

[sultry_jasmine_nights]

I grow lots of different passiflora not all of them are the edible types but I do have edulis flavicarpa, p. edulis, p. incarnata, p caerulea, p. Incense. The others I have are all ornamental types.  I had the p .phoenicea (Ruby Glow but it didn't set any fruit for some reason, even though I cross pollinated it with everything in the yard)

Here is a pic of the yellow (p. edulis flavocarpa)


p. phoenicea (Ruby Glow) - they sure are pretty

[lycheeluva]

glad to see that among us, its more popular than i had thought.
Robert, thats the same reason I havent grown it- space- but the minut ei get a place in Florida- i'm gonna plant a vew different varieties on every fence and non-fruiting tree.

[Berto]

Oscar,
The maracuja (passion fruit) you showed was developed by Embrapa (Empresa Brasileira de Pesquisa Agropecuaria).  It was developed for the juice industry.  Embrapa keeps coming up with new and improved varieties all the time.  As far as the Real versus Dollar.  I miss the good old days when 1 dollar was worth 3 Reais.  Now 1 dollar is worth approx. 1.7 Reais, and Brazil became very expensive due to its vibrant economy.  A couple year ago, I paid 5 Reais for a large maracuja doce (passiflora alata). It was the size of a small Hawaiian papaya.  Yummy!

[fruitlovers]

Oscar,
The maracuja (passion fruit) you showed was developed by Embrapa (Empresa Brasileira de Pesquisa Agropecuaria).  It was developed for the juice industry.  Embrapa keeps coming up with new and improved varieties all the time.  As far as the Real versus Dollar.  I miss the good old days when 1 dollar was worth 3 Reais.  Now 1 dollar is worth approx. 1.7 Reais, and Brazil became very expensive due to its vibrant economy.  A couple year ago, I paid 5 Reais for a large maracuja doce (passiflora alata). It was the size of a small Hawaiian papaya.  Yummy!

Passiflora alata is a very nice tasting fruit. I wonder, since we are on the wondering topics, why it is not grown more often in USA? Seems like most everyone here grows P. edulis. Brazil right now is about 2x more expensive than other South American countries, due to the high value of their currency. But it's still definitely worth a visit!
Oscar

[TropicalFruitHunters]

Robert is correct.  I had a huge plant and just could not keep up with it.  I have a cousin who swears he has a plant here in town that is killed back each winter but comes back strong in the spring.  Not sure if it would be worth the effort.

[FloridaGreenMan]

Here's a photo of some passion fruits grown by Eric Bronson here in South Florida. These were very nice tasting, just the perfect sweet-tart flavor. I could eat 20 of these in a sitting,  no problem. One disadvantage of these plant (vines) in my area is that they grow so fast and so thick that they can bring down a fence! There is a local attraction called Butterfly World in Coconut Creek that has an incredible passiflora collection, one of the largest in the US.           

[warmwxrules]

When I was in Cancun, I remember the resort I stayed at had them and they were awesome.  No one else seemed to be eating them.