TROPICAL TASTE: The Fruits of Summer

It boggles my mind to see the varieties of fruit growing year round on our islands, but to me summer fruit seem to be just a bit more special! We have become so accustomed to seeing them at the farmer's market or growing in our back yards that we usually take them for granted

I love to watch visitor's reactions when they encounter the exuberance of color, shapes and fragrances for the first time, all at once, with the colorful quilt that is our Hilo Farmer's Market as a background. Their reaction triggers an equal reaction from me.... Like someone is pinching my arm and reminding me of how fortunate I am!

Lucky live Hawai'i! is a part pidgin phrase you hear from locals often.  Yes, indeed......Lucky live Hawai'i \m/...

Some of the following fruit are very familiar to all of us and others are a little bit strange, but they are all wonderful. When encountering fruit that is strange to you, I encourage you to take the plunge! Taste it, experiment with it... I promise you new delightful experiences await you that will surely open up your taste buds!

 Pineapple, apple bananas, coconut, kiwi, passion fruit, cherimoya, starfruit, mangoes, lychee, oranges, calamandin...all part of the cornucopia of summer fruits in Hawai'i!

ANONA - Atemoya, Anon - Annona atemoya, hybrid- A hybrid made by combining the Cherimoya and the sugar apple (sweetsop). It is a heart shaped fruit with a very rough pebbly, bumpy skin. Skin is green. As you open up the fruit, each shiny black seed is enclosed in wonderful custardly sweet white pulp. Great for milkshakes and ice cream, can be eaten fresh by scooping pulp, seeds and all in spoonfuls, then spitting out seeds as you clean them off!

Native to South and Central American also popular in the Caribbean and now being grown in South Florida, California, Hawaii, New Zealand and Australia.

CHERIMOYA - CHIRIMOYA - Custard Apple - Annona cherimoya- Name derived from the Quechua (Incan) word chirimuya or cold seeds. Grows in the tropics and up to 6,000 ft elevations. Skin similar to the anona, but less bumpy and sometimes quite smooth. Can turn pink and yellowish red when ripe. Eat same as anona.

PINEAPPLE - Ananas Comosus - Halakahiki in Hawaiian - The only member of the bromeliad family that will produce fruit. The pineapple originated in Brazil and traveled to the Caribbean and then westward to Central America and the Pacific with the Spanish and Portuguese colonizers. It is considered a herbaceous plant and it is also related to the ghostly looking Spanish moss.

Pineapple, coconut, passion fruit, mangoes and little calamandins.

PAPAYA - Carica papaya L - He'i in Hawaiian - the "good for you fruit" - Originally from Tropical America and known since pre-Columbian days. Quick-growing perennial, one plant can produce dozens of fruit at one time. Fruit size depends on variety and can be anywhere from about 6 inches to a foot or more long weighing up to 20 pounds. Papain aids as a digestive and it can be used as a simple meat tenderizer.

MANGO - Mangifera indica - Related to the cashew and the pistachio, it is universally considered the finest of fruits and probably a more important fruit in the tropics than the apple in temperate zones. Over a hundred varieties are known but only about a dozen are used commercially. Loaded with natural iodine. To me, it represents "the
taste of summer".

COCONUT - Cocos nucifera - Not really a nut, but a seed related to dates, apricots, plums, nectarines and peaches. Both the water and the flesh inside this seed are wonderful to eat or drink fresh or used in recipes in combination with other foods.

BANANA - Musa sp. - Wonderful source of potassium, bananas are perennial herbs and not trees. The fruit is actually a berry. Originating in the Asian Tropics, bananas are now grown throughout the tropics and subtropics. They are popular and consumed worldwide.

CITRUS - Oranges, lemons, limes, calamandine, pomelo..."It is hard to envisage any cooking without lemons" wrote Elizabeth David, an Englishwoman, considered to be one of the best food writers in the world. In total agreement, I would add any other citrus available to us to that statement... And of course, there is all that lovely Vitamin C as a bonus.

LYCHEE, LONGAN AND RAMBUTAN - All three fruit share origins in Southeast Asia. All three have tough skin that can be popped to get to the juicy contents, with the rambutan being the strangest of all. All three share elusive perfumey fragrances and tastes and all three have seeds that are toxic. Ideal snack or dessert fruit, usually eaten fresh, but lychee can be found canned in syrup.

Medeiros, fruit vendor on the side of the road, not far from my home - selling bananas, papayas and rambutan

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

(c) Sonia Martinez, Food Correspondent

Sonia's column "Tropical Taste" published bi-monthly at Food.Gather.com is an exciting look at the Cuisine of the Tropics.

I have been a gourmet/kitchen shop owner and cooking school teacher since the early 80's. I have been writing food articles as a regular columnist for several newspapers and a magazine. Some of the articles ended up compiled into a cookbook, also titled Tropical Taste, now in its second printing. A recent convert to the blogger world and am having a lot of fun with it. You can subscribe to Sonia Tastes Hawaii and keep up with my Hawaiian adventure.

You can find all of my columns at http://Food.gather.com

You can keep up with all my postings and other Gather activity by joining my Gather network. Just click here: http://foodiesleuth.gather.com  and then select the orange "Connect" button on the left-hand side of the page.

You can find me and other Food Correspondents, foodie content, recipes and more food and wine articles and connect with other food buffs at Food.Gather.com