alpha010

THAT, looks like a banana ball! what kind of flavor to that and how big does that tree/shrub/bush need to be to fruit? I wish I lived in tropics!

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harveyc

Hey, Shaggy, thanks for making me feel cultured! LOL

We do have some interesting markets here but also some really weird (IMO) people! I'd like to send some of those fruits your way! LOL

I may go to visit some close friends in Cincinnati this summer and want to check out Jungle Jim's (or something like that) which I read about once. Sounds like an interesting market.

Today I'll be taking my son to the hospital in Oakland and I'm hoping that afterwords my wife will let me drop by the very interesting market Berkeley Bowl. It's in Berkeley or, as some of us say, Bezerkeley, but they sell about 8 kinds of bananas and have a produce section that's about 75' x 200'.

Tog, I believe I've seen a picture of that fruit in a Yahoo group with a different kind of weird folks (like me) from around the world. I've never seen one in person, though.

Cheers,

Harvey

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damaclese

iv lost track of what we are talking about some were the last i new tog was offering me seeds then every one wanted them and now we have wired pictures of fruit iv never see before?

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harveyc

Hey, Paulo, here's a quick summery. It was Beth (lorax) who offered to send you seeds, not Tog, but Tog wanted some of the passiflora seeds also. Then we started sharing experiences in sending seeds and got into talking about some of these other fruits which have resulted from seed sharing, etc.

You better follow-up with Beth, though, since I don't know if you ever responded to her offer.

Over and out,

Harvey

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Tog Tan

Hey Shaggy, it tastes like an annona but to me it's more buttery and not too sweet. Nice. It didn't make it as a commercial crop cos of it's short shelf life. It gets to be as big as an American football. The tree gets to be 40ft tall and is supposed to fruit by the 3rd yr after planting. I paid just under $3 for the fruit in the pix. You can see my hand for size comparison.

Harv, thanks for the Rare Fruits link. I am not a fruit guy but I grew this out of curiosity. I think it looks real cool! If we were to start a new thread on Tropical Fruits, I think you guys will enjoy it cos together with Thailand we do have heck lots of weird and nice eating stuff. At our nursery before I teamed up with Francis, he has like more than 10 different types of fruits of which I didn't care less. He started with about 300 Nangka aka Jackfruit trees.

Lastly, some notes on Wild Rambutan species, Nephelium lappaceum ;
There are like about 10 different species of the original jungle plant in M'sia. All of them have small sour tasting fruits with a thin pulp.
The thing I hate about harvesting rambutans is that they are always full of the Kerannga Ants aka Weaver Ants, Oecophylla smaragdina. When you harvest the fruits, they will be all over you and you will experience pain from every direction. In Thailand, they introduce this ant species to the rambutan cultivars as a natural pesticide. Within the the tree, they make nests out of dried leaves and they are everywhere! They will attack and eat any other insect which comes into its domain. Over there the eggs of these ants is considered a delicacy. I have eaten it, well, so-so in taste except they make a cute pop-pop in the mouth.

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Tog Tan has sadly suddenly passed away 6/16/09. We will miss you Tog Tan.

alpha010

Harvey, my mom makes trips to Cincy every 6 months or so...I'll have to send her down there with a cooler to bring me some goodies back from jungle jim's. I'd go myself but thats still a 5 hours or so drive for me each way. I'd be happy to take shipments (small) of exotic fruits! My wife will hate me but, oh well....

Tog, you lost me at "Hey Shaggy" and picked me back up at "size of American Football"! LOL! I have never had an annona that I am aware of. Only exotic fruit (to me at least) I have ever eaten is caimito (star apple), carambola (star fruit), asian guava, mangos. Anything outside of those is alien to me. I do know what MOST of the exotics are just never tasted them due to the ignorant prices to even get 5 lbs. of fruit shipped directly to my house. But if shipped to me by a nice shopper....Harvey....I am willing to try any type of fruit or veggie except for durian (weak stomach for things that smell like carrion and rotten flesh). Ant eggs, very interesting, didnt know they get big enough to even make a snack out of them. Might have to try them one time, or just go to Malaysia and have you sit me blindfolded behind a table with a big pile of different Malay foods.

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harveyc

Hey Shaggy, Frieda's Finest is one online vendor with some interesting and exotic offerings. It even appears there must be a glut of mangosteen and they are running a sale and run only about $3 per fruit! Frieda's Inc. - The Specialty Produce Company I've bought the imported ones a couple of times in the Bay Area markets and they were very good. A friend who had bought some at these same markets bought some from Frieda last year and he said they were the best he had had.

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alpha010

Can't wait to show mama the my newest food bill! Thanks Harv! I usually order from Robert Is Here out of Homestead, FL but I can't order online only by phone, but they have some good stuff given the proper season.

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Tog Tan

This is scary, it's like approx $ 1.40 - 2.20 per kilo here, about 12-16 fruits! Works out to be about 8 - 15 cents each. And I call it expensive. I always eat at least 40 fruits at a single sitting which what? Makes me scoffing $120 at a time???

So what's the price of Rambutans? Any idea? In M'sia it's approx $1 - 1.40 per kg. The cheapest I paid at the Thai side of the Cambodian border was less than 9 cents a kilo. On top of the cheap price, it's all you can eat sampling. No one ever complains how many you can eat on the spot.

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Tog Tan has sadly suddenly passed away 6/16/09. We will miss you Tog Tan.

harveyc

Yeah Tog, I know of folks that talk about eating the cheap fruits like crazy when traveling in Thailand or wherever. I've bought rambutan a couple of times (non-irradiated fruit from Guatemala) and think it was something like $5-$6/pound. I buy less than a pound at a time when I buy them so it's not too extreme.

None of the mangosteens I've purchased have had gambouge though I've heard that is often a problem and not detectable from exterior appearances. Is it much of a problem there? Do you think it's related to wind damage or some other cause?

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Tog Tan

Is the gambouge you are referring to the yellowish stuff in the fruit? This is a term we don't use here.

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Tog Tan has sadly suddenly passed away 6/16/09. We will miss you Tog Tan.

harveyc

I guess it's spelled gamboge.

MANGOSTEEN says it's latex.

Mangosteen: insect pest and disease management says it is a yellow latex.

I have not seen it, only heard of it as a disorder which sometimes renders fruits worthless.

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Tog Tan

Ahhh.. the yucky stuff which is in the fruit! I don't know the cause of it and it's something we accept here since the fruit is so cheap. We just throw them away. I think it's a naturally occurring condition and has nothing to do with wind or physical mishandling. I will ask around but I think I won't find a decent answer.
Some of the fruits on the other hand have the pulp turn a crystalline like. This, the locals consider very good eating.

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Tog Tan has sadly suddenly passed away 6/16/09. We will miss you Tog Tan.

lorax

We distinguish between two annonas down here - Chirimoya and Guayabana. The former is sometimes called Custard Apple, and the latter is Soursop; they're delicacy fruits here and since they don't ship well once they're ripe (and ripen very quickly), they don't make it to foreign markets.

Chirimoya are best eaten chilled to the point of making the flesh a bit slushy, at which point they taste quite like gourmet vanilla ice-cream. I have a German friend down here who refers to them as "Hagen-Dasz Fruits"

Guayabana are best juiced; the flavour is a complex bouquet of tropical fruits with a hint of bitter and sour.

This is a Chirimoya of the 'Cariamanga' strain. It's about the size of a softball.

Other cultivars here are either more spiky or more indented on the surface.

This is a Guayabana; it's about the size of a football.

These are always spiky; if I'm buying one at market I bring a special kind of macrame bag made especially for transporting Guayabanas. However, I normally just purchase bags of pre-extracted pulp because they're an absolute beast to de-seed.

About $1 a pound in the highlands, and significantly less on the coast. I bought a case of rambutan from a local farmer for $3, and it had about 300 fruits in it, so I'd say that the highland vendors are definitely inflating the price.

OMG, just saw that. I need to read the whole thread when I check in, lol! Biribia here are extremely tasty, sort of a creamy pineapple and lime flavour and they're very easy to grow; easier than Chirimoya, which needs to be able to see snow in the distance to fruit properly. They're not exclusive to Brazil, though; Biribia occur naturally in our Upper Amazon as well.

Tog Tan

Hey Beth, we only have the protruding scale like Custard Apple here. I am pretty amazed by the smooth skinned type which I have seen on the net and from your pix.
Our Soursop look more like an elongated durian. In Malay, it's called Durian Belanda, which loosely translates to Farang Durian.
Btw, there are like 2 or 3 cultivars of the Custard Apple and 1 of the Soursop here. Kinda boring, ha? The Aussie Custard Apple which are imported cost as much as $15(!) a pc compared to the local ones which is like 60 cents to $1 each. It's bigger and supposed to be sweeter (I think not).

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Tog Tan has sadly suddenly passed away 6/16/09. We will miss you Tog Tan.

alpha010

Beth and Tog, you guys happen to have a spare bedroom I can stay in for a week or so to soak up the tropics?....lol.

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lorax

We consider the very protuding scale Chirimoya here to be inferior in flavour; basically the most desirable ones (which sell for about $2 each) are the size of softballs and have indented scales. The 'Cariamanga,' with its slightly indented scales, is considered to be the best of the South, and the 'Guayllabamba,' which is heavily indented, is the best of the North. Personally, I'm addicted to the Southern ones, as this is where I encountered them first. I find the 'Guayllabamba' ones to be almost insipid they're so sweet.

There are actually four types of Guayabana here, ranging from smallish with very shallow and rounded spikes, right through to gigantic (5kg) with long, sharp spikes; these last ones remind me of Durian in shape. The larger the Guayabana, the worse it smells when you open it; once you get past that, like Durian, it's fantastic.

lorax

Shaggy, I don't have a spare bedroom, but I have friends who own hotels. The most expensive part of a holiday in Ecuador is your airfare, and if you can make it to Miami even that is not so bad.

Tog Tan

Does the Guayabana need a cooling period like the Cherimoya to flower and fruit?

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Tog Tan has sadly suddenly passed away 6/16/09. We will miss you Tog Tan.

alpha010

Hmm.... Miami shouldn't be too hard to get to. I may just have to setup a vacation with the old lady next year to visit Ecuador. At least I might have a nice guide and translator!

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Get a little Love in your life. Jump in a Mosh Pit! The only place where every emotion one person can feel will join together and express all at once.