The Tropical Fruit Forum

Thanks for the ID assistance, skhan.
Much appreciated.

Aloha,

Sorry, can't help with telling them apart.

Must have missed you by just a little while.  I was wandering the arboretum this afternoon and came across the same tree (with loads of rotted fruit underneath, and quite a few good ones up above) and gave a branch a shake to get a nice yellow one to drop.  Really enjoyed the taste, and picked up some seeds from decomposed fruit.  I agree on the mango flavor but did not get close enough to the rind to get the sourness. 
I'll be planting a few of them in hopes of getting both male and female trees (I live in an area too wet for mangos -- maybe these will eventually fruit for me).

-- Chris

I have three kinds growing (T. cacao, T. bicolor, and T. grandiflorum), all planted about 3 years ago.  Some of the cacao are fruiting now but I don't yet have enough ripe to want to tackle the whole chocolate-making project.  So, for the first half-dozen, I just cracked them open and popped the seeds with pulp in my mouth, spitting them out a few seconds later.  I found there to be very little pulp -- it is a bit like tossing a tangy hard candy in your mouth and being done with it almost immediately.
An in-the-works experiment I'm currently trying is to take the cacao seeds with pulp and make cider.  I'm hoping it will taste a heck of a lot better than it looks.  If it works, I might report back.

My T. bicolor is 15 feet tall, still unbranched, with no sign of flowering. 
My T. grandiflorum plants are very slow growing, perhaps less than 3 feet tall in as many years.  Is that slow growth typical of grandiflora?

Yesterday, I was lucky enough to receive a cupuacu (T. grandiflorum) pod from a friend and tasted it for the first time.  The very hard pod had lots and lots of pulp, both on and between the seeds.  I could not finish it in one sitting.  My better half did not care for the taste, but I quite enjoyed the sweet/tart combination.  The theobromine and caffeine probably served as a little pick-me-up afterwards.

Chris

Last Sunday one vendor had durian for sale at Maku'u market, so you could try there.
Chris

I'm no fan of the resin taste of many surinam cherries, however...

A neighbor gave me a quart of cherries that she had pitted and put in the freezer.  I tried out a pie recipe for Thanksgiving and it went over well.  It wasn't quite like cherry pie -- it had a bit of a spicy, raisiny mince-meat-pie flavor underneath -- but the resin was not noticeable and it did taste like cherry.
The original recipe was at www.thebermudian.com/food-a-drink/recipes/bermuda-cherry-pie/ and my version of the filling follows.

1 quart pitted surinam cherries
1/2 cup water
1 cup sugar
1 tbsp fresh grated turmeric (the original recipe called for some grated ginger)
1 tsp lemon juice

Boil until it thickens quite a bit.  Let cool.
Use this as a filling in a pre-baked pie shell.  Heat it up for 10+ minutes, optionally with a meringue topping (which I didn't do).
I gave my guests, who were unfamiliar with surinam cherries, a bit of a warning beforehand.  The fact that I lowered expectations probably helped everyone enjoy the not-quite-cherry pie.  I would do it again.

Chris

I have a new tree loaded with its first jakfruits and I'd like to make gudeg, a dish which requires green jakfruit.  (My only experience with the unripe version is in cans of brine.)  So, at what stage can I harvest the green jakfruit?  And is there anything special to do in order to prepare it for cooking?  If anyone has experience with this, I would be grateful for tips -- Chris

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A friend in Hawai'i planted a 'fruit' tree more than 2 decades ago.  It is now an attractive tree about 25' tall and equally wide.  I am told that the fruit is inedible, but I was hoping someone here could point me in the right direction for an identification.  The larger of the two fruits is 4" across and is a bit less from bottom to top.

Photos below.

Many thanks in advance for your help here,
Chris

Today, while working on a fence in rainforest Hawaii, I came across some fruit on the ground.  Orange on outside, about the size (3" diameter) and shape of a large tangerine, but it is not citrus.  I took some leaves from a tree nearby but didn't see fruit in it, so I hope I got the right foliage.  The fruit skin is leathery and there is 1/2" or more of whitish flesh next to it before getting to the large 1"+ seeds in the center.  I didn't taste the fruit, though it smelled OK. After cutting it open, the exposed surfaces went brown very quickly.

PS.  I tried a Google image search using the picture of the whole fruit, but the first item to appear was 'spoiled fruit', so that didn't get me any closer to an answer!

Any help in identifying this from the forum experts will be greatly appreciated!
Chris