Whenever I visit the supermarket, I love to browse the unusual fruits in the produce aisle. It’s quite a difficult thing for me to process because I am very eco-conscious and food miles does concern me but I’m also a real foodie who loves to try ingredients from all over the world. There are times when passion for food overcomes my green-ness and it very often results in me picking up some unusual fruits to try.
1 Pineberries
What attracted me to these is simply that they look like strawberries – though strawberries which have been coated in white chocolate and then pricked to let the red come through. But if their pseudo-strawberry look is a surprise, their taste is even more so. I love these unusual fruits because they smell and taste more like a pineapple than a strawberry. So we have a fruit that looks like a strawberry and tastes like a pineapple - sounds like something from Willy Wonka – yummy!
Frequently asked questions
2 Golden Passion Fruit
Before a recent trip to Asda, the only passion fruit I knew was a dark purple one that wrinkled when it got older. Now, I know there is also a golden version and not only it is an attractive color, it is also 2-3 times the size of a regular purple passion fruit – this means more yummy pulp and seeds – and it’s even sweeter. The ones we have in the UK are grown in Kenya as a “get out of poverty” development crop. Win all round then.
3 Lime Caviar
I tried quite a few unusual fruits when I visited Australia and never imagined many of them would make their way to the UK but to my delight, I found some lime caviar. These are fabulous! The finger shaped fruit which looks like a cross between a lime and a baby cucumber is filled with transparent pods (or berries) which pop in the mouth in a burst of citrus. You can see in the pic why it’s called caviar. In native Australia they come in green, yellow, pink and red but I’ve only seen green here in the UK.
4 Snake Fruit
Known as salak in its native Indonesia, snake fruit might be familiar to you if you’ve been on vacation to Bali. It has scaly brown skin (hence the name) and grows on a certain species of palm tree. Sweet but also acidic, it has a taste reminiscent of pineapple and it varies in texture from crumbly to crisp apple-like. One particular variety – a favorite of monkeys in Malaysia – has been known to contain as much as 13% alcohol by volume.
5 Achacha
The achacha started life in the Bolivian rainforest, found its way to Australia and now thanks to Marks and Spencer, we have it in the UK. Small and melon-like, and if you know what a mangosteen is, it’s quite like that in taste and texture. If you’re looking for unusual fruits to increase your intake of vitamin C, try some achacha. (It’s packed with calcium too).
6 Jujube
The Chinese started eating jujubes more than 4000 years ago but the trees spread around the world and are now cultivated in many areas. I have only ever eaten these unusual fruits on one occasion and that was in a Lebanese restaurant. I thought they might what is referred to as a date palm but I’m still not sure about that. Most references I can find mention that it is used in many cultures to make medicinal teas and infusions. The best time to eat them is just before they turn red when the flesh is sweet and crisp, like an apple.
7 Plumcot
As its name suggests, the plumcot is half plum and half apricot. It is a hybrid, created in the early 20th century by Luther Burbank, an American botanist. I love them because they take the best of the two fruits and makes one delicious one. I like the taste of apricots but prefer the texture of plums so for me, the plumcot is a perfect summer stone fruit.
I think it’s important that now the experts are saying we should be eating “7-a-day” portions of fruit and veggies that we are willing to try new things to prevent our palates becoming bored or overloaded with the same things. Unusual fruits can certainly mean never getting bored. Do you look for more unusual fruits and vegetables or do you stick to more common ones?
