Meet The Cherimoya, Golden Valley, Minnesota, March 2010, all photos © 2010 by QuoinMonkey. All rights reserved.
For me, grocery shopping will forever be a chore. Instead of rolling down the aisles with a wire cart, you might find me snooping around the deli section or hiding over by the Redbox machine. Last week was different. An ordinary trip to our local, and newly remodeled, Byerly’s (which opened in 1968 as the largest supermarket in Minnesota) sent me running to the fruit and veggie aisle. Waves of sea, grass, and olive greens chased the crimson, rufous, and cherry reds that lined the shelves in a visual feast. I admit, I’m not very adventurous when it comes to food. Especially, exotic fruits and vegetables. But then, exotic depends on your point of view.
When Liz plucked this armadillo shelled brown fruit off the shelf and pointed to its scale-like skin, I had to know more. Standing right there, next to the bananas and golden grape tomatoes, she Googled cherimoya on her BlackBerry. Names like soursop, custard apple, and strangealiendeathfruit popped up, along with a quote from Mark Twain describing the cherimoya as deliciousness itself. What? A literary fruit? I was hooked.
The cherimoya is believed to be indigenous to the inter-Andean valleys of Ecuador, Colombia and Bolivia. Its cultivation spread in ancient times to Chile and Brazil. And though some think the cherimoya comes from Peru, others insist that the fruit was unknown in that region until seeds were sent by P. Bernabe Cobo from Guatemala in 1629, and that representations of the cherimoya on ancient Peruvian pottery are actually images of the soursop.
Wherever its origins, the cherimoya is the fruit that spread round the world. It is commonly grown and naturalized in temperate areas of Costa Rica and other countries of Central America. In 1757, it was carried to Spain where it remained a dooryard tree until the 1940’s and 50’s when it gained importance in the Province of Granada as a replacement for orange trees that succumbed to disease.
In 1785, the cherimoya traveled to Jamaica, then Haiti, and in 1790 to Hawaii by way of Don Francisco de Paulo Marin. The first planting in Italy was in 1797 where it became a favored crop in the Province of Reggio Calabria, before making its way to Madeira in 1897, then the Canary Islands, Algiers, Egypt, Libya, and Somalia.
The U.S. was a late bloomer. Seeds from Mexico were planted in California in 1871. And the U.S. Department of Agriculture imported cherimoya seeds from Madeira in 1907. Though the trees have not done well in Florida, California had 9,000 trees in 1936, many of them killed by a 1937 freeze. Several small commercial orchards were established in the 1940’s, and, at present, there may be less than 100 acres in the milder parts of San Diego County, making this a rare fruit in this country.
The Wave, The Tomatillo, My Favorite Byerly’s, Golden Grape Tomatoes, Visual Feast, Golden Valley, Minnesota, March 2010, all photos © 2010 by QuoinMonkey. All rights reserved.
Strange fruit. Because we didn’t know enough about the cherimoya to know if it was ripe or not, I still haven’t tasted one. Now I know that a ripe cherimoya will usually be dark green (though this is dependent on the variety), have a loosening stem, and give to the touch in much the same way as an avocado. The flavor is described as a mixture of mango, papaya, bananas and coconut. And the inside ranges in color from light green, to off white, to pink.
Yes, pink — from a tree that originated as a seedling, owned by a California man named Mr. Stevenson. Rumors suggest the pink cherimoya originates from very high elevations in the Andes. I’d like to pick up a cherimoya the next time I’m at Byerly’s. How adventurous are your taste buds? Have you ever tasted the cherimoya, tomatillo, or mangosteen? Tell us about your taste experiences with (what are considered this country) exotic fruits and vegetables.
Resources:
The Cherimoya, Jewel of the Incas – at CloudForest Fruits
Cherimoya – at NewCROP, Horticulture & Landscape Architecture, Purdue University
The Fruit Mark Twain & I Both Love – at the Grocery Fiend
Manual of Tropical & Subtropical Fruits: Excluding the Banana, Coconut, Pineapple, Citrus Fruits, Olive & Fig by Wilson Popenoe, Agricultural Explorer – Harvard University Library, published by the Macmillan Company, 1920
Beautiful food. I used to stop at Byerlys some years ago for ice cream (with a chocolate malt ball in the bottom of the cone) when I was shepherding a traveling team of squirmy, giggly girl soccer players.
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Hey QM, the cherimoya is a cool fruit, indeed. I love saying its name, pronounced (when you say it fast) “chitty moya.” It is delectable, one of my favorite fruits when I lived in Granada. It’s flesh is white, and yes, a consistency kind of like a mango when the mango is very ripe, especially those little yellow mangoes. You scoop it out with a spoon, and it has the most beautiful black seeds, round like small marbles.
They call it custard apple in Vietnam, where I came across the fruit again after a long hiatus (I hadn’t lived in Spain since the mid-1980s). It was a delight to see once again the cherimoya, and I get it anytime I’m in Vietnam (I believe it’s grown in the Mekong Delta). Vietnam, btw, has the most exotic fruits I’ve ever seen, and there are several others that have become my new favorites, including the chom chom.
One of the things I notice when I eat fruits in Vietnam–and this was the case when I lived in Spain–is that they are so much better tasting than anywhere else, I guess because they’re so close to the source. I can still remember thinking that bananas in Spain were different from those in the U.S., just because they were so much sweeter and richer. It was almost like I was eating a different fruit. I think they used to come up across the Strait of Gibraltar from Africa.
The tomatillo is pretty widely used here for a green salsa, blended in a food processor with onion, garlic, and chile. I usually buy that one in summer. They come up from Mexico, although you can grow them here, too.
Fun, fun thing to get to know the many exotic fruits and vegetables there are in this world and how they are prepared and eaten. Cool post, QM.
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Gunnar, that sounds like fun! Didn’t know about the malt ball at the end of the cone. Am going to have to check that out. (I have experienced that at Sebastian Joe’s though.)
ybonesy, which Vietnam post was it that you posted all those photos of food? Fruit especially. I think there was a shot of bananas, maybe a market shot. I wanted to add the link in this post.
And did you mention the cherimoya in that post as well? If you’ve got a photo from your travels, drop it in here or put a link to the post. I couldn’t remember for sure.
I’d love to experience foods in other countries some day. Though I don’t think I have the world travel bug as much as you, I’d really like to get to some of the old ancient Celtic sites.
Minnesota is pretty conservative in their food choices. They don’t usually go for many spices or exotics. It was so much fun to see the choices that were in this spread of fruits and vegetables. I also see a lot of choices in organic places like the Wedge. When I was on a macrobiotic diet, I ate a lot of foods that I had never eaten before. It was kind of fun to deviate from the norm.
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Oh, wanted to say one other thing. One of the fun things about his post was following the journey of the cherimoya across the world as people tried (and sometimes failed) to get it to grow where they lived. I thought it was interesting that it wouldn’t grow in Florida. And is hard to grow in California. It’s sensitive to low temps, humidity and cold. I liked learning the history of that one fruit. And to think that each fruit has its own journey.
Back to the macrobiotic thread, I learned during the time I was on that diet that our bodies are best off eating what grows naturally in the area or region where we live. Which flies in the face of everything we usually do when we eat. Americans eat a lot of bananas, yet are they grown at all in this country? I’m not sure. In the Midwest, that limits us because of our cold winters. It makes for a whole different diet. I have never eaten a fresh tomatillo, but knew that you had by virtue of where you live. It’s fascinating to link place and food. I always enjoy when you write about it from your travels.
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Hey QM, here is one post, I think maybe my first one from Vietnam, where I included photos of fruit. A~Lotus mentioned in comments something about the custard apple, and at the time I’d heard of it but it didn’t click that it was the cherimoya. I remember some time last year walking with one of my Vietnamese friends by a fruit stand, stopping and pointing to a bunch of different fruits. When I asked her what the custard apple was like, she described it and suddenly it clicked, ah, it’s the same as the cherimoya!
Blogger In Vietnam – Is Speaking Your Mind So Dangerous?
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BTW, QM, I loved reading about the journey of the cherimoya, too. It’s a good way to learn a bit about history, through the foods that are passed from one culture to another. Interesting, too, that so much of what was indigenous to the so-called New World was then taken back to the Old World (Spain, Portugal). And a lot introduced from Spain to the Americas, including lots of disease.
When did you go on a macrobiotic diet and was there a particular reason? Was it challenging to follow day in and day out?
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Oh, yeah, now I remember. Beautiful photos in that post. Yes, your first from Vietnam. And you’ve got a photo of the mangosteen (mystery fruit). How was that one? I also wanted to ask if you’d had the soursop. I guess it gets confused for the cherimoya a lot. They must be similar. Do you know if they taste different? It looked like the soursop was smaller than the cherimoya when I was researching.
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Oh, forgot to answer your question about the macrobiotic diet. It was in my late twenties. I had an infection that would not go away with traditional medicines. So I opted for alternatives. I went to a homeopathist down near Hamilton, Montana. Went on a lot of natural herbs, teas, and, of course, the diet change. It was a big one. No meat or milk or sugar. Can’t remember about wheat. Just know we made almost everything at home. And it was a little more expensive than shopping at the supermarket. We went to alternative co-ops to shop.
I lost a lot of weight, was probably down to a really good size for me (haven’t been quite that thin since then). My skin cleared up; I had a lot of energy. And the infection went away. I felt good but it was a lot of work to keep up, especially in the world we live in. I went off of it after about a year. But some of the habits stayed with me. With diet changes, I find it to be an endless battle with me to eat well. I’m working hard right now to eat better and get exercise. Went for a long walk today in the park near our home. Got some natural Vitamin D from the sun. I hope to keep going through Spring and Summer. Have you ever done a diet that drastic?
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No, nothing that drastic. But, I think I’ve mentioned before here on the blog that when I was growing up my three sisters, who are all older than me, would test out all sorts of funny diets. I remember the one where you’d eat 7 hard boiled eggs one day, 7 bananas the next, and 7 hot dogs (minus the bun, etc.) the next. I think the diets would come out of Cosmopolitan Magazine. It was hilarious, and I was old enough (17, about) to actually try one day’s worth, although I never could make it through.
I did do a juice fast for about three days, once, and that had a quick impact. I think I lost about 5 or 7 pounds. It was so hard, though, and I didn’t have any very good reason to do it except I wanted to lose weight. And I did get down to about 105 pounds, which I could never maintain. The best I did in my 20s was about 115.
Cool about your recent diet and the effects thus far. Keep it up!! Sounds like Byerly’s, with their newly wonderful fruit and vegetable section, is going to be a favorite stop for you. And it sounds like a much more reasonably priced place than a Whole Foods, which, btw, also often have gorgeous produce areas, but at a way-high price.
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QM, I meant to say, I don’t know whether I’ve eaten the soursop. I’ll have to look that up on this next trip, which is pretty soon. And the mangosteen has a weird gooey texture that I don’t like. It’s sort of orange-clear on the inside, kind of mucus-y (I don’t know how else to describe it) and also has seeds that you have to take into your mouth and then spit out (or at least I do). It’s more tangy, too, than sweet.
In the post Local Color — My Favorite Shots Of The Mekong Delta [LINK] is a shot of my favorite fruit: chom chom. I also like “longan,” which are slightly larger than grapes, with a tough brown shell that you pull apart with your thumb nails, and inside is a refreshing flesh, like a peeled grape. But inside that is a rather large seed, and sometimes the seed outer skin comes off while you’re pulling the flesh off of it. I think that’s the part that I haven’t learned so well: how to pull the flesh off the seed.
Here, btw, is the link that A~Lotus shared with us in the comments of the Blogger Speaks Her Mind post:
http://vietnam.sawadee.com/fruits.htm
You can see there what the longan looks like.
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Oops, looking at the photos of Vietnamese fruit in that link I just shared, I realized I must have confused the persimmon or some other fruit with the mangosteen. No, I’ve not tried the mangosteen. I’ll have to try that one. I’ll report back on it in this post, QM.
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Funny that you would post this today. While shopping with my daughter, at one of those uppity “natural” type grocery stores where I never shop because it’s too pricey just last night, we discovered the cherimoya. We didn’t buy it but after searching it (I almost typed “googling” but I don’t use Google) when I arrived home, I think I will go back and get one or two. They sound delicious. Of course, that’s if the weather cooperates in the next few days before I forget about it! It has been raining non stop here and I generally don’t drive in the rain so it looks like I may be home bound for the week.
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QM
What a neat post & what a strange looking Fruit…never heard of it! Have to share the time that artichokes first arrived in Bismarck. I was familiar with them, having grown up in LA, and really like them. So, when they made their debut in ND, (can’t remember when…many, many years ago,) I, of course, had to purchase one. At checkout, the boy bagging my groceries, picked it up and quietly said to the cashier, a young woman, “What is this?” She whispered back, “Darned if I know!” So, I thought it my duty to introduce them to this wondrous veggie, explaining in minute detail how they are cooked and how one goes about eating one. They looked incredibly at me, especially when I described dipping the leaves in your preference of mayonnaise or melted butter and scraping the flesh off with your teeth, building up a pile of discarded leaves on your plate. I chuckled to myself as I walked away; knowing they thought I was either the world’s biggest storyteller, or a plain old liar!
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yb, I remember us talking about diets in the post comments way back a few years or so. I remember one that had these little cubes you kept in the fridge that tasted like sugar. Can’t remember what they were called. I wonder if they had saccharin in them or something. Who knows. I should correct myself when I talk about the macrobiotic diet. It was kind of a lifestyle change rather than a diet fad. It totally changed the way I lived my life for a time. I was getting a lot of exercise then, too. In the end, I could not sustain it though. Or maybe I didn’t want to do the work it would have taken to keep it going. I had to cut out so many different kinds of foods that I like. And thanks for the kudos on my recent attempts at eating healthier, getting exercise, watching portions. I’ve lost about 9.4 pounds so far. I feel a lot better. I’m going to keep working on it!
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yb, let me know about the soursop after your next trip to Vietnam. I’m wondering how it’s different than the mangosteen. Wasn’t that one photo in your first Vietnamese post (the one with the purple skins) of a group of mangosteens? I thought I saw you had titled it that. I don’t know what a mangosteen looks like. I was pretty focused on the cherimoya in this post and was afraid if I got too far off the mark, I’d never get it done!
Corina, that is an odd coincidence that you’d run into the cherimoya the same time as I did. But maybe it’s because they are coming into the stores right now. Do come back and let us know if you try one. I’m going to do the same. ybonesy told me that the one in the photo I posted is probably ripe. I think Liz was worried that it would be overripe. I guess we’ll see when we try them next time!
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oliverowl, great to hear from you. Ah, I’m glad there is someone else for whom the cherimoya is a new fruit. Maybe we can say we’ve tasted it by year’s end! We’ll have to see if they are still in season when you come to MN this summer. I can’t believe there was a time when the artichoke was not available in Bismarck, North Dakota. I just never thought of that. So you were able to introduce them to something new. That’s pretty cool. It brings up the point, that if artichokes were once exotic and not that available, that, eventually, other fruits may become less exotic.
I have a friend who makes a mean stuffed artichoke. It’s a family recipe passed down from one of her aunts, I believe. It takes a long, long time to make them, but, boy, are they delicious! I love artichokes. Maybe I can ask my friend if she’ll make them for us here one of these days. It’s been a long time since I had one.
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QM, yes, the photo of the fruits with the purple skin — those are mangosteens. Once I see them again up close and personal, I’ll know for sure if I’ve tasted them, although I’m thinking I might not have yet. Same with the soursop.
Right now I can only be sure of a few that I tend to eat over and over. I have probably expanded my fruit repertoire by five-fold in Vietnam alone, and I’ve lost track of what innards go with what outers, if you know what I mean. The passion fruit is easy, I eat it a lot. I’ve tasted one called the Jack Fruit, and I think it’s kind of like the mangosteen inside but very different outside, but here’s where it gets confusing, because they’re both white flesh with dark seeds, like the cherimoya. And the passion fruit is white skin with lots of black seeds, but it looks way different, and I’d never confuse it now because I eat it on every trip, many times.
I need to learn my fruits, though. I thought I had them all down. Alas, I’ve forgotten so soon!
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yb, would be fun to have a little play by play after your next trip to Vietnam where you’ll be eating a lot of these fruits again FRESH. Maybe a photo, then comments on each fruit after a new taste test. BTW, the cherimoya, I believe, was around $7 or $8 in our local supermarket. Which was part of the reason we wanted to be sure it was ripe before buying. That’s a lot to pay for a single piece of fruit. I wonder what the prices run in Vietnam. So close to the source.
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Woah!, that is an unreasonable price as far as I’m concerned! That’s amazing.
Hey, I like your idea about the fruits. Too bad my iPhone doesn’t work in VN. That could make mobile posting a possibility where I could eat and upload as I go. But let’s see what I can manage to do with my usual tools.
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I don’t think I’ve ever had a cherimoya, but when i lived in Malawi we had all sorts of unusual fruits turning up – including the custard apple and several things I never discovered the name of.
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oh that’s annoying, I commented using my wordpress account, it’s Crafty Green Poet here… Mind you my WordPress Information Officers Suppoprt blog is useful and interesting if that’s what you’re into….
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If I’m not mistaken, juliet, the custard apple and cherimoya are the same thing. (Oh, and so you have a WP Info Officers Support blog? Does this mean you’re a WP content expert? In which case I know where I’m going if I have WP issues 8) .)
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yb, I’m confused about whether the custard apple and cherimoya are the same thing. Some people use them interchangeably. But when I was researching at the Purdue site, the researchers suggested they might be slightly different. The Cherimoya is from Annona cherimola. And the Custard Apple is from Annona reticulata. So I’m still trying to figure it out. Do they look alike but taste different? And then there is the soursop which also must look a lot like the cherimoya. Maybe you can get the skinny on your trip to Vietnam. I bet the locals there might know the differences. And they might be subtle. Tell me what you think after you read these.
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Here’s what the Purdue site said about the Cherimoya (Annona cherimola) (LINK):
Certainly the most esteemed of the fruits of the genus Annona (family Annonaceae), the cherimoya, A. cherimola Mill., because of its limited distribution, has acquired few colloquial names, and most are merely local variations in spelling, such as chirimoya, cherimolia, chirimolla, cherimolier, cherimoyer. In Venezuela, it is called chirimorrinon; in Brazil, graveola, graviola, or grabiola; and in Mexico, pox or poox; in Belize, tukib; in El Salvador it is sometimes known as anona poshte; and elsewhere merely as anona, or anona blanca. In France, it is anone; in Haiti, cachiman la Chine. Indian names in Guatemala include pac, pap, tsummy and tzumux. The name, cherimoya, is sometimes misapplied to the less-esteemed custard apple, A. reticulata L. In Australia it is often applied to the atemoya (a cherimoya-sugar apple hybrid).
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And here’s what the site said about the Custard Apple (Annona reticulata) (LINK):
Both in tree and in fruit, the custard apple, Annona reticulata L., is generally rated as the mediocre or “ugly duckling” species among the prominent members of this genus. Its descriptive English name has been widely misapplied to other species and to the hybrid ATEMOYA, and it is sometimes erroneously termed “sugar apple”, “sweetsop” and, by Spanish-speaking people, “anon” or “rinon”, in India, “ramphal”, all properly applied only to Annona squamosa. It has, itself, acquired relatively few appropriate regional names. Most commonly employed as an alternate name in English-speaking areas is bullock’s-heart or bull’s-heart; in French, coeur de boeuf; Portuguese, coracao de boi; in Spanish, often merely corazon—all alluding to its form and external blush. The skin color is reflected in the Bolivian name, chirimoya roia, the Salvadoran anona rosada, and the Guatemalan anona roja or anona colorada. In the latter country it is also known as anona de seso. Araticum ape or araticum do mato are additional names in Brazil. Some people refer to it as Jamaica apple, or as netted custard apple, which is translated as anona de redecilla in Honduras and Nicaragua. Cachiman, cachiman coeur de boeuf and corossol sauvage may be heard in the French-influenced West Indies.
In the Netherlands Antilles it is kasjoema. This name and boeah nona are used in Surinam. In Cuba, it is mamon or chirimoya. Some Central Americans give it the name anona, or anonillo; Colombians, anon pelon. To the Carib Indians the fruit was known as alacalyoua; to the Aztecs, quaultzapotl, and to the Maya, tsulimay, tsulilpox, tsulipox, pox, oop, or op. It is generally called in the Philippines sarikaya; in India ramphal, nona or luvuni, in Malaya, nona kapri, or lonang; in Thailand, noi nong”;; in Cambodia, mo bat or mean bat; in Laos, khan tua lot; in South Vietnam, binh bat; North Vietnam, qua na.
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Just to mix it up, here’s what the Purdue site says about the Soursop (Annona muricata) (LINK). Seems like it’s from the same family, too. But it actually looks completely different. I wonder if the devil is in the details with these fruits. Depending on where you live, they might be called different names (what’s in a name?). BTW, all of these excerpts come from articles written by Julia F. Morton on the Purdue site.
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Of the 60 or more species of the genus Annona, family Annonaceae, the soursop, A. muricata L., is the most tropical, the largest-fruited, and the only one lending itself well to preserving and processing.
It is generally known in most Spanish-speaking countries as guanabana; in E1 Salvador, as guanaba; in Guatemala, as huanaba; in Mexico, often as zopote de viejas, or cabeza de negro; in Venezuela, as catoche or catuche; in Argentina, as anona de puntitas or anona de broquel; in Bolivia, sinini; in Brazil, araticum do grande, graviola, or jaca do Para; in the Netherlands Antilles, sorsaka or zunrzak, the latter name also used in Surinam andJava; in French-speaking areas of the West Indies, West Africa, and Southeast Asia, especially North Vietnam, it is known as corossol, grand corossol, corossol epineux, or cachiman epineux. In Malaya it may be called durian belanda, durian maki; or seri kaya belanda; in Thailand, thu-rian-khack.
In 1951, Prof. Clery Salazar, who was encouraging the development of soursop products at the College of Agriculture at Mayaguez, Puerto Rico, told me that they would like to adopt an English name more appealing than the word “soursop”, and not as likely as guanabana to be mispronounced. To date, no altematives have been chosen.
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