Strange Fruit
I was given a fruit to taste and identify. The golden fruit looked so pretty and delicious. I could imagine how it must have looked with a whole tree laden with the fruit.
When I cut it open, the flesh was reminiscent of soursop but the taste was new to me. It had a bright flavor which is very refreshing. The fruit had a large hard black seed and that was the clue. It reminded me of a Chiku(Sapote family) and since that fruit was originally from Central America, this fruit should be a relative.
Thanks to Google, I found that it was called a Canistel.
http://www.google.com/search?q=canistel&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a
ERRATUM
Following a lunch with my friend who gave me the fruit, I was promted to do a little more research on the fruit and I realized that it was not really a Canistel(Pouteria Campechiana) but something close. From the following website, it seem to be a Caimito or Abiu(Pouteria Caimito).
The difference was the color of the flesh. The Canistel had yellow flesh while the Abiu had white flesh. However, both are from the Sapote family and known to us in SEA as Buah Chiku. The Buah Chiku originate from South America so no surprises with the similarity there.
Abiu, Caimito
http://toptropicals.com/cgi-bin/garden_catalog/cat.cgi?uid=Pouteria_caimito
Canistel
http://toptropicals.com/cgi-bin/garden_catalog/cat.cgi?uid=Pouteria_campechiana
2 comments:
Hi Tom! You have a great blog. I really admire your breadcraft! The fruit you showed is something I've eaten just once and it was called a Bull's Heart. It's not very widely grown in Malaysia where I reside, though it is definitely a tropical fruit, as the one I tried came from a friend in Melaka. Where did you get yours?
Karen-Michaela
Hi Karen, the fruit was from a friend who got in in turn from another friend. She mentioned that her friend has tree/s in her garden laden with this fruit. I was quite intrigued and tried to grow one from the seed but it did not work.
Thomas
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