The Stomach Always Knows

The most visceral way to know that you're in a strange and new place is walk along the fresh produce aisles of the local grocery store. Ah, the stomach always knows! And so the other day, we bought a selection of fruit that we've either never eaten, never heard of, never seen, or only eaten as a processed ingredient in another food product.

So: on the far left, the ruby-colored egg-shaped little fruit is a red tamarillo. It's also called a tree tomato. According to various sources online, this South American fruit tastes like a cross between a passionfruit and a tomato, which seems like an unusual (and potentially unpleasant) mix of flavors to me. At the bottom of the the photo are two hard dark purple passionfruit. Who knew they looked like that? Everybody? Oh. For some reason, I didn't. After consulting some online sources, we now know that we have to wait until the skin is wrinkled before they're ripe. So, these fellas have a long way to go.

At the top, resembling a firm and voluptuous miniature pumpkin, is a persimmon. Pleasantly orange, and $3US for a kilogram, this is an affordable fruit. Once ripe, persimmons can be stored for months at a time in a dark closet. The plural: Is it persimmons, or just persimmon? Maybe it's persimmi. Who knows? Tropical syntax. Finally, on the right, we have a feijoa. Also South American, the feijoa is an important cash crop here. It's a very popular flavoring and additive, and is on shelves as a fruit in its own right. In the grocery stores, there are shampoos with feijoa extract, breakfast cereals with dried feijoa, feijoa flavored ice cream, health drinks with feijoa juice in them. Feijoa everywhere! From a distance, it resembles a lime but it's nickname -- pineapple guava -- probably says more about its flavor.

Wait a second ... feijoa. Feijoa. That's a nice name for a girl. (ck)