I grew up in Australia, and passionfruit was an everyday sight during my childhood. There was a large passionfruit vine at the entrance to my elementary school, there were passionfruit-flavored soft drinks available in the corner store, and just about every Aussie is familiar with pavlova covered with some combination of strawberries, kiwifruit, and passionfruit. Cutting a passionfruit in half and just scooping out the seeds and flesh with a spoon was a regular thing when i was a kid.
When i moved to the United States, it was to the east coast, and i basically didn’t see a single passionfruit for eight years. I only really realized this when i made a trip home to Australia, and saw some passionfruit for sale in a fruit market. It just doesn’t seem like much of a thing in the US.
Now, here in California, i can get passionfruit again, but even here it is only available in a select few places. I almost never see it for sale in regular produce markets, and the yuppie/hipster farmers’ market in the predominantly white neighborhood near my house doesn’t have it. One place where it is always available, however, is in the smaller, cheaper farmers’ market in the working-class black and Latino neighborhood. Two or three of the vendors, all Mexican or Mexican-American, sell passionfruit there every week.
When i first started buying the fruit from them, i was shocked to find that my wife, born in California and raised for her whole life in San Francisco, had never even sampled fresh passionfruit. I couldn’t believe she had never had the pleasure of that tart-yet-sweet goodness.
So, anyone else a fan of passionfruit? If so, how do you eat it? I sometimes just scoop it out with a spoon straight into my mouth, but more commonly i mix it with fresh strawberries and plain Greek yogurt for my breakfast.
I had never tasted fresh passionfruit until I took a vacation to the Dominican Republic. My verdict was that a perfectly ripe fruit tastes great, but a less ripe fruit is too sour for me. So it was a bit hit-or-miss.
We done the passion fruit…We done oranges, apples, grapefruit…Whole and segments…Pomegranates, greengages…Grapes, passion fruit…Lemons…Plums…Mangoes in syrup…How about cherries?..We did them…Red and black?..Yes!..All right, bananas.
I too am transplanted Aussie in the US. I planted a passionfruit vine this summer and it has three green fruit already! I seldom see them for sale, and when I do they are very expensive. I think when they’re ripe I’ll make a pav to celebrate.
I had never had fresh passionfruit until I spent a month in Australia. Had at least one every single day. I’d just saw them in half and scoop out the seeds. Yuuuum. It makes me very sad I can’t get them fresh now that I’m back in the US.
Never had one until I went to the one city in Cameroon that is known for having them. I liked it so much that we bought every one available in the market. Now I always keep an eye out for them.
At the farmers’ market that i mentioned in the OP, the usual price is about $3.50-$4.00 per pound. I’ve seen them as cheap as $2.00, but that’s usually for fruit that are really dried out, with basically no flesh inside. Pointless to even buy them when they’re like that.
I paid $3.50 a pound last week, and for about five or six bucks i got enough that, when i scooped them all out, they filled a 12oz jar to the top. If i use it just on my yogurt, as i usually do, that will last me a week quite easily, although if i dig into it at other times it will get used up more quickly.
Of course, you have to be canny when buying. You need to pick the fruit up and feel its weight. It’s pretty easy to tell if there’s a decent amount of fruit inside, and shaking it can often help you as well.
I cried the day my BIL cut down a passionfruit vine producing five pounds of fruit a week! because he said it looked unsightly and anyway passionfruit is trash fruit, a weed.
Starbucks has had a passion fruit tea for a few years now. I quite like it. It’s also available in the produce section of the local supermarket, but I’ve never tried it.
Passionfruits are awesome, especially the really sweet orange ones. However, someone recently told me that those aren’t passionfruits at all, but they’re a related fruit called granadillain Spanish (she wasn’t sure of the English word). I’ve only had them in Peru, Costa Rica, and Amsterdam.
I’ve also very rarely seen the standard purple kind. A few years ago, I bought one at the Dominick’s grocery store of yore, but it was all shriveled, dried out, and sour.
I too grew up in Australia and transplanted to California. At the height of the season in Australia, you could get them 6 for $1 or even 8 for $1 sometimes. I finally found some passionfruit in San Francisco at Rainbow Grocery. They were selling for $28 a lb.
