I’m more of a vegetable person than fruit, but cape gooseberries are amazing, if you can get good ones. The ones we got in Egypt were fragrant and sweet. They grow here in Hawaii, where they are called poha berries. You can sometimes buy them at farmers’ markets, though not ones as extraordinary as the Egyptian ones.
Yesterday on a hike my friend and I came across a motherlode of fat, juicy, not-quite-yet-ripe poha berry plants, a once-in-a-lifetime perfect storm of plants that grew up in the wake of the lava flows that changed the island forever. We’re coming back in a couple of weeks, when they should be ripe, with big sacks. Mmmmmm…
Bananas are also wonderful if you live in the tropics and can get good ones. The ones that get sold on mainland supermarket shelves are the equivalent of icebox lettuce and tomatoes and bear no relationship to the real thing.
Lychee and mangosteen are wonderful as well.
Someone upthread mentioned durian - it’s another favorite, but once again, you have to have access to good ones.
Yes, I love those too! In the south of Italy they grow wild everywhere and there is a tool - a long stick with a metal tube - to lop off the fruits and get them for free basically. You do need to take great care in cleaning them, as in their wild state they defend themselves!
Peaches are my absolute favorite, but it is hard to get a good one in the grocery store. They really need to ripen on the tree which means you need to get them locally grown.
Pomegranate lovers: How do you eat the little fruity nuggets? Do you (mostly) spit out the seeds or (mostly) swallow them? Do you eat them the same way if you’re consuming handfuls of juicy beads v. finding a few on/in a salad (i.e., you’re not going to swallow two dozen seeds, but you probably will swallow a couple of seeds, especially if you’re eating the salad in an upscale restaurant)?
YES! My driveway is lined with ginormous 15-ft loquat trees (also called Japanese plum trees around here). I often just eat the fruit right off the trees (the ones I can reach). The 4-5 seeds in each plum are big and pretty. An enterprising/crafty person could make jewelry out of them. The squirrels have planted some in my yard and I have a new loquat tree that’s almost six feet tall. It might even bear fruit this year.
When I buy a pineapple it’s typically because I’m making shish-kabob for dinner that night. We then have pineapple with our lunches the next day and a pineapple-based dessert at some point (like pineapple upside down cake).
Another good thing to do with leftover pineapple is to chop it up and soak it in vodka or high-proof rum. Mmmmmmm.
My newest apple variety is the Kiku. Very crisp and a different type of sweet.
Yeah, tried it, but my history of surgical training with its emphasis on careful dissection makes me shudder at that approach. Plus too many of the seeds rupture.
Thank you for enlightening me - I’m ashamed to say I had never heard of that. I think the reason is probably because it’s only a theoretical issue: “however, the human relevance for drug-drug interaction was not established based on the limited case studies.”
Slight hijack warning: I also found the following. As we’re all enthusing about fruits; and as the average Doper is perhaps not in the first flush of youth, and as a consequence may be more likely than most to be favoured with the occasional course of medication; here is a publication detailing potential drug interactions with popular fruit juices.
Incidentally, juices are emphasised because, while you might drink a pint of apple juice in one hit, say, you’re less likely to eat a pint’s worth of apples. At least, that seems to be the thinking. MoonMoon - you may be an exception to this generalisation.
Everyone’s listing fruits that I like here, and my favorite tends to be whatever is in season and good.
But I think it’s hard to top a good pineapple from Hawaii. The ones from central America just don’t cut it.
Second would be fresh cherries from an orchard nearby. Bings are great, but even better are Brooks.
After those two is a changing favorites list, including, but not limited to: Blenheim apricots, lychees, Flavor Queen pluots, Honeycrisp apples, Golden Muscat grapes, Sumo fruit, California navel oranges, ripe mangoes, and ripe Tuscan melons.
The last time we were in Hawaii, we became addicted to a small local banana. It had a luscious tropical, semi-tart flavor. You had to let this variety sit around until it became quite blackened, because it was too crisp and unripe until then. The ripening took all week, and in a tropical climate, too! I wish we had access to this kind of banana on the mainland.
There used to be a banana farm near Santa Barbara (sadly wiped out by fires & mudslides) that had banana varieties I never knew existed–all shades of red, green, yellow & brown in a variety of shapes & sizes. Apparently the Cavendish banana (the ones you see at supermarkets) are popular because they travel well & have a relatively long shelf life. But at the banana farm, I tasted varieties such as Candy Apple Bananas & Ice Cream Cones that were heavenly.
When I first started eating pomegranates I carefully spit out the seeds. Then I found out they were non-toxic and just ate them. I just crunch up the nuggets (technically, they’re “arils”) seeds and all. Doesn’t matter if it’s just a couple arils on a salad or a whole pomegranate. It’s all nom, nom, nom…
Regarding pomegranates, I also eat the whole thing, seed and all. It’s too much trouble otherwise. And hey, can always use the extra fiber!
My favorite fruit are bananas. BUT a very specific banana. It has to not be green, maybe just a hint on the edges, so bright yellow but ZERO spots. Once it gets even a single spot the entire taste/texture of it has changed and I won’t eat it. Unfortunately that makes it hard to keep bananas in the house lol
I would say watermelon, but I’ll devour any fruit except cranberries. I got sick on cranberry sauce one Thanksgiving when I was a kid and I’ve never been able to eat the damn things since.
