Ecuadorian Fruit!

This morning Lisa and I decided to go to the store and buy all the fruit that we couldn't readily identify and bring it all back to my house and try it.  In the store we stopped in front of each unidentifiable fruit and picked up a bunch of them, smelled them, squeezed them, trying to determine which one to buy.  We weren't sure what we should be looking for so we guessed we didn't want the hardest one in the bunch and we didn't want the squishiest one either.  At one point I was trying all the pepino dulce and a lady starts telling me in English that it didn't matter how soft or hard they were - the color was more important, that I want the yellow ones.  This caused me to start to second guess all of our previous purchases but decided that we better just go with what we had.

It took us a while to identify each of these (they aren't marked in the produce section, I guess you're supposed to know what they are) so I was watching like a hawk as the checkout guy at the grocery store was putting in the codes and the name would appear on the register display so between that and our receipts we were able to piece together what each one was.

It's kind of hard to read all the labels so from top to bottom left to right here is the list:

First Row:

• pineapple of course (not weird but I need it to make colada morada which is a drink associated with the day of the dead November 2nd, I'll post more on this later)
• melon canario (yellow mellon)
• guanábana (soursop)
• papaya
• babaco (no direct English translation that I can find)
• tomate de árbol (tree tomato)

Second Row:

• granadilla (passion fruit)
• pepino dulce (melon pear)
• pitahaya (dragon fruit)
• mandarina king (large mandarin orange)

Third Row:

• tuna (prickly pear)
• taxo (banana passion fruit)
• maracuyá (also translates to passion fruit)
• naranjilla (translation I'm finding for this is Quito Orange but this is really nothing like an orange, it is super super sour and it goes into my canelazo, a hot tea like beverage with aguardiente, a type of alcohol)

I had to take pictures of the insides of all of these because the insides generally look nothing like the outsides!!

Taxo

Unfortunately the taxo we had wasn't quite ripe so it was pretty sour.  We had a taxo tree in our back yard last year and we weren't tall enough to reach to pick them off the tree so we had to wait until they fell to the ground.  Turned out that was when they were perfectly ripe and sweet.  So inside it's a bunch of seeds with gelatinous but watery sweet outsides.  We just swallowed the seeds - otherwise it would take forever to eat if you spit out each one by one!  Overall I like this one - I will wait for the other one to get ripe and then eat it.

Tuna

It turns out "granel" just means buying in bulk so this fruit is just called a tuna or prickly cactus in English.  This one was sweeter than the taxo though it wasn't something that we wanted to keep eating.

Pitahaya

The pitahaya was delicious!  It is sweet and the seeds aren't prominent and don't detract from the flavor. I wasn't sure about the texture at first but we really liked it.  This was one of the favorites.

Maracuyá

The maracuyá is super sour but absolutely delicious.  If you like grapefruit you'll like this one.  We ate it with a spoon, seeds and all.  We ate the whole thing - yum!

Pepino Dulce

The pepino dulce was a little strange - the taste seemed to change as you were eating it, and the flavor was unlike anything I've tasted before.  We ate both the "meat" of it as well as the seeds in the middle.

Granadilla

The insides of the granadilla were just like the maracuyá (seeds surrounded by gelatinous stuff) but it didn't have all the flavor.  It wasn't sour like the maracuyá, and it tasted more like water than a fruit.  Or I guess I could say it had a "subtle flavor" - how about that for finding something good to say about it!  We still ended up eating a whole one so I wouldn't rule this one out completely.

Guanábana

So I've had guanabana ice cream and guanabana flavored cakes and things before and I've enjoyed them all so I guessed I would enjoy the fruit on its own.  I'm still trying to make up my mind on this one.  It comes off almost in sections where each of the seeds are.  It's milky, nutty, sweet, but watery at the same time.  The flavor is distinctive.  This one goes at the higher end of my like scale - I think I'll look up some recipes and see what I can make with it.  

Babaco

The babaco was a no for me.  The middle was like this spongy thing, we were speculating that you could just take the middle out and use it to do dishes or wash the counter.  Let's see - flavor-wise - it was like a lime flavored pear maybe?  What the heck am I going to do with the rest of it - it's huge!!!!

Tomate de Árbol

I've had tomate de árbol juice and I love it.  The fruit does taste similar to a tomato but slightly sweeter.  It's okay on its own but I think it's better as a juice with a little bit of sugar.

Naranjilla

Naranjilla is super super super sour but I like the flavor.  I love it in my canelazo and I bet it would be good juice with a bit of sugar.

Melon Canario

This tasted a little like honeydew - you take out the seeds just like a regular melon.  This one was the closest to the fruits that we are used to and was a good break from the other ones that had "interesting" textures and flavors.

Lisa with the maracuyá and babaco - they are huge fruits!!

What a fun morning!  I'll have to start buying some of these on a more regular basis - especially the pitahaya and the maracuyá!