Pepino Melon

Unlike most other times, our discovery of this fruit was not proceeded by research. We happened upon it at our local Whole Foods, where are eyes are trained to pick out exotic specimens among the traditional fare. Unsure of how to determine ripeness, we chose at random. The melon was small (about the size of an elongated apple) and readily gave to pressure. It had a rather strong aroma that I found to be similar to that of tomatoes. The flesh cut easily and revealed a small core of small seeds mostly separated from the flesh, unlike most other melons which have a cavity lined with flat, broad seeds. Undoubtedly this is because it is not a true melon, but grows from an evergreen plant. The soft flesh tasted somewhat sweet and melon-like, but it also had some unpleasant undertones that reminded me slightly of tomato and cucumber. It was this acidic, bitter quality that ultimated turned me off. Though the flesh was plentiful, easily prepared, and pleasing in texture, I could not get past the unpleasant taste. It is safe to say that we will not be purchasing this melon again. 

Kiwano (Horned Melon)

This spiny orange-colored fruit looked exciting and beckoned for us to try it. We were careful while handling it because the outside of fruit is difficult to hold due to the little horns on the skin. Not knowing what to do with the fruit, we sliced it in half. The inside looked gooey and jelly-like and is a bright green hue. Inside the fruit are many watermelon-sized white seeds. Each seed was in an individual green sac of the fruit. Anthony and I each held up a half of the fruit to our mouths and sucked on it to try and pierce the little green sacs of fruit. On first contact with my mouth, the green fruit tasted sour. After researching online, most websites said to squeeze the fruit out of the melon. So I squeezed the outside of the melon while it was in my mouth and out came a disgusting jello-flavored liquid. I do not understand how people could eat this fruit because it was nearly impossible to chew. I could not swallow any of it because it would not dissolve in my mouth or with my vigorous attempt at masticating it. I agree that this fruit would be a better decoration rather than something I would ever buy to eat again.


-Bri

Casaba Melons

After getting a nice fat paycheck this week, we decided to head up to Chelsea, MA to look for some new fruits and veggies to try. We came across a strange looking yellow melon with a rough texture and ridged skin. Once we took it home we decided to wait a day or two before opening it up just to make sure it was ripe enough. Once we split it open with a knife, a cucumber-like aroma flooded the air. The pale white and yellow flesh was extremely soft and easy to slice out of the rind. The taste was extremely sweet and reminded me of a honey dew melon but tasted more like a cucumber than the honey dew melon. It also was very juicy and I enjoyed it much more than the cantaloupe and the honey dew melon. After discussing it with Anthony, we decided that the casaba melon would taste good on a salad due to its vegetable-y flavor. I really enjoyed this melon and would definitely buy another one!


-Bri

Fruit Juice

I'm dedicating this post to discussing all of the fruit juices I've had in my life. I'm going to review several juices and offer my favorites. Bri will do the same in this post as well.

Anthony:

• Orange: A classic, this acidic tasting juice comes with varying amount of pulp. I prefer the no pulp variety. Orange juice is sweet, but also very tangy and acidic. As such, I find it excellent for quenching thirst. I enjoy orange juice most when it is very cold, and when I have food to eat with it to counterbalance its acidity. 

• Lemonade: Few things can be as refreshing as lemonade on a hot day. Most of us are willing to shell out 6 dollars to watch a street vendor squeeze fresh lemons into a cup of ice water, and with good reason. The delicious tanginess and sweetness of lemon juice is virtually unmatched in terms of refreshment. Home-made lemonade is easy to make and requires only a citrus squeezer, cold water, and sugar. 

• Pineapple: A childhood favorite of mine, pineapple is a sweet pulpy juice with a refreshing tropical taste. Pineapple juice is definitely best served cold. It is very sweet but also slightly acidic.

• Guava: I recently tried guava juice by accident and was pleasantly surprised. I found that it was sweet, but also very slightly bitter. Its flavor was hard to place, but it was definitely tropical. I suppose it bear some similarly to pineapple flavor, but yet it was unique in many ways.

• Grape: Another favorite from my childhood, grape juice is simply delicious and sweet. I find it to be lighter and less filling than the others and thus easy to drink vast quantities of it.

• Pomegranate: Said to be a "superfruit", I'd rather get my antioxidants elsewhere. I find its juice too bitter and tart to enjoy (at least on its own), making it one of the few fruit juices I don't enjoy. 

• Cranberry: Cranberry juice is a sweet, but very tart juice. I do enjoy it on its own most of the time, but I find it better served as companion to other fruit juices. 

• Apple: I've saved my favorite for last. Though not the most exciting fruits on their own, apples yield a delicious, perfectly balanced juice. Apple juice is sweet and is not vexed with any other unpleasant flavors. Its sweetness is not overwhelming like some juices which irritate my throat and make me feel gross. Apple juice contains the perfect amount of flavor and when I'm hot, nothing in the world beats a freezing cold glass of apple juice with tiny ice crystals beginning to form on the surface of the juice.  

Bri:

• Lemonade: One of my favorite juices is lemonade. The best brand that I have ever had is no doubt Newman's Own Lemonade. I love the tartness of this brand. Another thing I enjoy about this lemonade is the delicious amount of pulp in it.  

• Orange: I go through phases where I drink orange juice a lot. It's my favorite juice to drink with breakfast (on the rare occasions that I even eat breakfast). However, the acidity of orange juice often upsets my stomach. I do, however, love the orange juice that is packed with pulp. The one thing that I noticed recently is that some orange juices contain omega 3 fish oil so it is not vegan and something I need to watch out for.

• Apple: I love apple juice! It's been one of my favorites since I was a child. Nowadays, I love drinking Cloudy Apple juice. I also LOVE drinking apple cider in the fall, either hot or cold. 

• Cranberry: Despite its tartness, cranberry juice offers a sweet and dry taste. I'm not a huge fan of the juice but I enjoy it on occasion, especially mixed with some seltzer water. 

Donut Peach

Sometimes also called a "saucer peach", donut peaches are so named simply for their donut-like shape. These flat and round fruits are in the category of white peaches, meaning their flesh is white. Unlike the more commonly eaten (in the U.S. anyway) yellow peaches, white peaches are said to be sweeter and milder, lacking much of the tanginess of yellow peaches. Unable to ascertain the ripeness of the donut peaches we saw, we selected one that gave slightly to pressure. In hindsight, it was a bit shy of optimum ripeness for us, but still enjoyable. We cut the flesh open and, as expected, it was white and similar in appearance to that of an apple. The taste was indeed mild and sweet, and did not posses any of the sharp tanginess characteristic of "typical" peaches. In fact, the flavor tasted not completely unlike that of an apple. Overall, it was quite good though, as mentioned, it was a bit shy of optimum ripeness. Either that, or the texture of the donut peach was different from that of yellow peaches. In any case, it was a tiny bit dry and brittle like an unripe yellow peach. Next time we will try to better assess the ripeness before we purchase one.

-Anthony

Pluot

Not content with trying merely one plum-apricot hybrid (the plumcot), today we purchased a pluot. Although sharing the same ancestors, the pluot was markedly different in appearance and flavor from the plumcot. With color tones ranging from crimson to orange, this fruit was larger and firmer than its cousin. It had smooth, leathery skin like a plum. Upon cutting, much juice erupted from the flesh, which was a deep maroon color. Placing the fruit upon my tongue revealed its intense, tart flavor, not unlike a grapefruit. Biting the flesh divulged its pleasant texture. Whereas the plumcot possessed a stringy flesh that clung to the skin, the flesh of the pluot was more plum like and firm. Yet still, each bite was very juicy, sweet, and tart. Some bites (possibly those that were bruised) had a mild, non-tart taste. We quickly finished the fruit, eating as much as we could, which was easier than with the plumcot, as it was much more plentiful. Though many different cultivars of pluots exist (such as the one depicted in the picture), we highly recommend trying them on the contingency that they bear any resemblance to the one we tried.

-Anthony

The Plumcot

A curious portmanteau of plum and apricot, this novelty hybrid was next on our list. It is a small, dark purple mushy fruit with a leathery skin, much like a plum. It contains, as expected, a small hard pit. The flesh is deep red to orange and very stringy. The stringiness, as well as the sheer lack of a substantial amount of it, did not make it an ideal palm fruit. However, the taste was sweet and pleasant like a plum. I'm not experienced enough with plums and apricots to compare this to either of them in detail, but it did seem as though they retain the gustatory qualities of their parents. Perhaps if they were larger, and their flesh was of a more pleasant texture, they would provide an enjoyable snack. However, due to their properties, they are probably best utilized in pies, jams, and other recipes. 


-Anthony

Papaya

Today we decided to purchase a prepared papaya half with limes laid on top at Whole Foods. The flesh was orange and rather mushy to the touch, and emanated very little odor. The fruit was easily spooned out and had a stringy, but very soft texture. The taste is quite subtle, we found. My first bite did not afford me any opinion, though my second bite revealed an unpleasant vegetable-y flavor somewhat reminiscent of a very bland watermelon with hints of carrot. Subsequent bites continued to establish the flavor as both elusive and illusive, so it was clear that some mutual mastication was needed. Others that tried it spoke of coffee-like undertones and one remarked that it tasted like a tanning salon (the meaning of this will not be explored here). I also definitely detected a coffee-like undertone to certain bites. I suspect that the tenuous taste varied among different locations of the flesh.  However hard to detect the exact taste it was, it was clear that we did not enjoy this fruit and would not attempt to eat it plain and raw again. The function of the limes is still not understood, as only flesh very near to the limes acquired their flavor.


-Anthony

Edamame

On an extremely humid day trip to Cambridge, we decided to check out The Ginger Exchange in Inman Square. One of the many items I ate for lunch included steamed edamame. Edamame is basically a baby soybean and is served on a plate while they are still in their pods. The first time I tried edamame was in Seattle at a sushi restaurant. I made the embarrassing mistake of putting the whole thing in my mouth (pod and all) and trying to eat it that way. I learned right away after I got looks from others sitting with me at the table that I was supposed to eat only the actual beans that are inside the pod.

Aware of how to eat edamame from that day in Seattle on, I was excited to try some more edamame at lunch today. Once popped open, there are usually two or three beans inside of each pod. Then you simply pop each bean in your mouth and enjoy. They taste very fresh and similar to any other soy bean I have ever eaten. They aren't soft like kidney or garbanzo beans, but are firm and somewhat crunchy.  Edamame is a little bland so I am thinking up a way to create an edamame salad. Let me know if you have any suggestions!

-Bri

Raspberries

On a journey up to The Big Apple in Wrentham, Massachusetts, we decided that we would pick raspberries for the first time. The raspberries were strewn very sparsely amongst the short bushes so we spent a while trying to fill our container. Once we brought them home and thoroughly washed them, we left them out so we could eat them as we pleased. The raspberries supplied us with a sweet aroma similar to other berries I have tried. They are very sweet but at the same time very tart depending on their ripeness. They are very seedy so they are not as easy to chew as other berries but nonetheless, I enjoyed them.

Worried that the raspberries would go bad before we finished them all, we decided to try making some homemade jam. After looking at some recipes online, we got a general idea of ingredients to use and put together our own recipe. We decided to only use a small portion of our remaining raspberries because we were unsure as to how the jam would come out.

Raspberry Jam

1 Cup of Raspberries

2/3 Cup of Sugar

2/3 Tbs of Lemon Juice

Dump the raspberries in a medium sauce pot and mush them until they are evenly flattened and mashed against the bottom of the pot. Next, boil the raspberries with the sugar. Once the mixture starts to boil, add the lemon juice. Keep boiling until it gets to the consistency you like. Then pour it into a container and refrigerate until it is cool enough to eat.

Enjoy!

-Bri

Peaches

Peaches are perhaps the most fickle fruit I've yet tried. Maybe I'm just being picky, but the ones I had prior to tonight have been either too ripe, or not ripe enough. With the inconsistency of supermarket peaches, I suspect this is an easy mistake to make. Peaches that are not ripe enough are bland and have a difficult texture somewhat akin to a dry apple. Peaches that are too ripe have an overly slimy texture. I've learned to determine ripeness by smell and by firmness. Ripe peaches have an unmistakable, readily evident aroma, and give a bit when squeezed but aren't too mushy. The peach I bought tonight possessed such qualities and because I did not have to worry about the texture, I was able to focus on the taste. The best way to eat a peach, in my humble opinion, is just to grab it and take a bite of it. The skin adds a slightly annoying texture, but it is certainly tolerable. If not, it is easily peeled off with a knife. The taste of a peach is one of those which is too unique to easily describe in terms of familiar tastes. It is sweet, juicy (extremely so; have a napkin handy), and tangy and is truly one of the best hand-held fruits out there. The name of the variety I tried escapes me, but it was a standard shape and had a yellowish interior. There are various other cultivars out there too, such as donut peaches and eastern peaches, that I may well write about in the future.


-Anthony

Coconuts

On our next adventure to the supermarket, we searched for another tropical fruit to try. This time, we stumbled upon the coconuts. They looked appealing and seeing them reminded me of being somewhere tropical, instead of being in the currently dismal weather of Boston. Anthony and I looked at each other and immediately knew that this had to be the fruit we were going to try next. Back in the kitchen, we struggled to get the coconut open. We tried sawing it open with a knife. Of course, the shell did not budge. Frustrated, we decided to try with a hammer and screw driver. With one swift bang by the hammer to the screw driver, the shell cracked and an even line formed around the middle of the coconut. With a pull we got the two halves separated. Immediately, a transparent white-colored liquid dripped out from inside. Eager to try the milk, I held a the half containing liquid up to my lips and took a sip. I was quickly repulsed by the bitter tasting liquid. Maybe the second sip would be better? Nope. I gave up on drinking the milk. After dumping out the liquid, I decided to slice off a piece of the flesh. Plopping the piece into my mouth, I was greeted with an unusual texture and a bland taste. After chewing on it for a few seconds, I had to spit it out. Quite disappointed with the coconut, but enjoying the appearance of the fruit, we decided to create a candle holder out of the coconut (see picture above). Although I would never buy this fruit again to eat, I did enjoy the fresh and tropical aroma that the fruit released.

-Bri

Corn On The Cob

For the next food, I chose to descend into the land of vegetables and try corn on the cob (though technically fruit). Since I'd had mixed results trying even the sweetest, most accessible fruits, I was not particularly optimistic. Anything I'd ever been forced to eat as a kid did not seem like something I would chose to eat as an adult. But anyway, we bought a few husks at the local store and boiled them up to eat with our dinner. After trying one kernel (to ensure it was thoroughly cooked), I was pleasantly surprised by a delicious sweet flavor (caused by a genetic mutation in Sweet Corn that prevents the plant from converting all of its sugar into starch). My first bite into the cob was an even more pleasant surprise. I instantly realized that I really enjoyed its light, sweet flavor. A lot. I even went so far as to decide, on the spot, that I liked it more than popcorn. And this was before I put butter or salt on it! Barely stopping to take breathes between bites, I quickly devoured the ear. Since then, corn has probably been our most purchased food and in the future we hope to try grilling it.

-Anthony

The Pineapple

On a whim, I'd decided to purchase a large pineapple from a local supermarket. I'd never really tried pineapple in its own rite, though I am of course familiar with its flavor. The first obstacle we encountered was the stubborn form of the pineapple, which would not reveal its fruit without a fight. Much fruit was wasted the first few times we slaughtered a pineapple, but we quickly developed a skill for preserving it. Perhaps the most obvious characteristic of the pineapple was its extreme juiciness. Cutting a pineapple invariably inundated the work area with the acidic, sweet smelling liquid. After the messy task of cutting was completed, we were left with several ring-shaped pieces. The first bite into the pineapple flesh could only be described as a explosion of sweet, delicious flavor quite unlike any other fruit we've tasted. Needless to say, the rest of the fruit did not last long on our plate. Eat bite brings with it so much juice that it almost seems as though eating pineapple is a hydrating experience. The ambrosial taste is best described as cool, sweet, and refreshing and cannot be compared to any other fruit. The texture of the flesh is somewhat awkward and stringy, but the taste more than makes up for this fact. Riper, more mature pineapples have a softer, more pleasant texture and are even sweeter and more delicious.

Notes:

• Pineapples do not truly ripen after being picked, so only ripe ones should be purchased.
• Ripe pineapples will have a golden color to them, will give slightly to pressure, and have a strong, pleasant aroma.
• Pineapples cook wonderfully and can be enjoyed on pizza and in many other meals. Pineapple juice is used as a meat tenderizer because it contains enzymes which break down protein.
• To cut: Remove leaves. Remove 1 inch section from the top and bottom of pineapple. Cut along the sides to remove skin, cutting deep enough to remove all seeds. Cut the cylinder into circular slices. The core can be removed with a knife, or cubes of fruit may be taken from around it.

-Anthony

The Golden (Oriental) Melon

During our stay at the C-Mart, we stumbled upon a strange looking yellow fruit. With a name such as Golden Melon, it did not seem like something to be feared. The least exotic in the sea of unknown fruits, this small ovular and ridged fruit cost us much less than the lychees. Once we arrived home, we snatched one of our knives, and figured we would treat it like any other melon we have had. Like other melons, it consisted of a core of mushy white seeds surrounded by a firm white flesh. The rind was a lot thinner than the rind of other melons. We sliced up the fruit like one would slice a cantaloupe and proceeded to consume its pale flesh. Not quite nervous to try this familiar looking melon, I quickly bit into my slice and was pleased with the light, crisp, and sweet taste. I would compare the taste most closely to Honey Dew but it was still distinct. It lacked the familiar "vegetably" taste that American melons often have. Another aspect of the experience was the texture. It had a strange pulpy texture to it instead of the watery and more crisp American melons. All in and all, the taste was pretty satisfying but the texture was a tad off-putting. I probably would eat this melon again if it was presented to me, but since there was nothing really special about it, I would not spend more money to purchase one.

-Bri

The Lychee

Our quest to try exotic fruits brought us to a dingy Chinese supermarket in Chinatown called C-Mart. Among the dozens of unfamiliar foods, the Lychee stood out to us. We'd heard it described favorably before by a Westerner so, despite the price, we picked up a bag. Most notable was their rough outer rind which, admittedly, was not very appealing. The small fruits emitted a slight sweet floral aroma that was not familiar to us. Upon opening the fruits, the smell was intensified and a soft milky-white flesh was exposed. The texture certainly did not impress upon us fondly but we continued. I cut up a small piece and put it into my mouth. The texture was as unpleasant as predicted but not prohibitively bad. The taste was sweet and somewhat pleasant, with obvious floral tones. Still something about it was not very appetizing and I only made it through a few bites. I suspect it was the unfamiliarity with the taste and texture that caused this distaste. Overall, we couldn't say that the taste was unpleasant per se, but it is certainly not something we would pay money to eat again. We found them to be much more worth their cost as projectiles rather than food.

-Anthony