[BryanJ]

A friend of mine and I just went to my local grocer and picked up the only produce in the store that we had never had before. We got a bunch of red bananas (Turbanos), a kiwano (African horned melon) and two Seckel pears. The pears we just ate raw, the bananas got braised in Red Stripe (disgusting raw) and the kiwano was made into a gastrique.

Any of you have experience with these items?

[chalkdust]

i have aLWAYS WANTED TO TRY THE BANANAS as well as the horned melon.

how was the melon? was it tasty?

braised in red stripe? lol

never heard of the pears. where are they from?



are the bananas from spain or from india or from the caribbean?

were they ripe when u cooked them?

[ED BUCHANAN]

Seckel pears are mostly home grown MINI pears here in US. When they start to turn yellow they are ripe. Mostly grown west of rockies. Their novelty is their size(they are cute). They are good poached in simple syrup with a touch of red wine, then a spoonful of Creme Anglaise on top.

[OahuAmateurChef]

My girlfriend just missed out on a sale on dragon fruit in Chinatown at $1.99 per pound. We went back the next day with $$$ to load up, but the sale was done and gone.

I also wonder about the taste of Kiwanos. I see them year round but have been too cheap to pay the premium to ever give one a taste.

[KYHeirloomer]

>Seckel pears are mostly home grown MINI pears here in US. <

That's been generally true in the past, Ed. But more and more I see them showing up in supermarkets. Which tells me that somebody is growing them commercially.

[chalkdust]

i wish african baobab fruits would be commercially available, a lot of fun can be had with these fruits....

as well as the following

breadfruit (i heard soemone is developing a method of cultivationn for the USA)

soursop (guanabana)

african name yam or other non sweet african or caribbean yam grown in places like ocsta rica or jamaica or honduras (mostly grown in the caribbean for import to us)

they just are usually bad when u get them in us stores

[OregonYeti]

I grew up with tropical fruits growing around me. A lot of the less common tropical fruit found in US grocery stores (except in Hawaii) is hardly like the fresh fruits that were just picked ripe. Bananas and mangoes are exceptions--they are pretty good, though varieties available are limited. All guavas I've bought in mainland grocery stores have sucked. I should say I've never lived in Florida.

There are some tropical fruits I've never tasted. I'd like to know how to find good ones, and what kinds are usually still good when they reach the grocery store here.

[BryanJ]

The bananas were from Columbia actually, and according to what I found on the internet, they were ripe. Thing is, the internet said that they were good raw, but these were hard and chalky. They almost had the mouth-feel of eating a mouthful of antacid. I have a few left, and I'm gonna give them a few days to soften up and see if the internet was wrong.

[DC Sunshine]

Bry,

Sorry I have some sad news for you - the internet is not always correct

Had some exotic(to me) fruits in Hong Kong and Singapore....I think some of them you have to grow up tasting them to really like them. Think one was Star-fruit (?). The other was.....Durian. Umm. yeh..why did anyone ever bite one in the long long ago and think they should be eaten?!?! Apologies to Durian fans out there...but the li'l darlings are banned on the subway there. Not sure if it's because of the smell or because they de-rail the trains.

Mangoes well they are great straight off the tree, eaten in the pool. Had a 30m tree in Darwin, so had an endless supply while they were in season. The local birdlife loved them too, so it was a double bonus.

The cashew tree was just weird. Big bulb hanging off the branch, then a single cashew growing off the end. Poisonous until cooked correctly (which I didn't know how) so they all went to the ground like big squashy bell peppers. Strange fruit that.

[chalkdust]

Originally Posted by BryanJ

The bananas were from Columbia actually, and according to what I found on the internet, they were ripe. Thing is, the internet said that they were good raw, but these were hard and chalky. They almost had the mouth-feel of eating a mouthful of antacid. I have a few left, and I'm gonna give them a few days to soften up and see if the internet was wrong.

interesting, let me ask some local Colombians about this for u. they might have a special trick to ripen them correctly in non-colombian climates.

[chalkdust]

gotta mention the Jamaican ackee fruit

also poisonous unless properly prepared
it is great stuffed into a breadfruit, either as a curry or as with salt cod, onion and tomatoes (ackee and saltfish is the national dish of jamaica and is scrumptious with boiled or fried dumplings and tender and plump boiled green fig or green banana as we call them)

[OregonYeti]

Originally Posted by DC Sunshine

The cashew tree was just weird. Big bulb hanging off the branch, then a single cashew growing off the end. Poisonous until cooked correctly (which I didn't know how) so they all went to the ground like big squashy bell peppers. Strange fruit that.

I've heard that cashew fruits are really good to eat, tho never tasted one myself.

[BryanJ]

The internet isn't always right!? OMG! JK man. I just figured that since I disn't know anything about them, and none of my cookbooks reference them (to my knowledge) I'd look online.

[DC Sunshine]

Originally Posted by OregonYeti

I've heard that cashew fruits are really good to eat, tho never tasted one myself.

I wish at the time that I had the time to look into it more and use them, as this tree was a really good fruit bearer. You could almost hear the fruit dropping at night...THUD! All I had time for was running over them with the lawn mower while chasing off the 2m monitor lizard .

Don't look so doubtful...it lived in the storm water drains and would come tip your rubbish bin over for some lunch. Ended up training it to sit up and beg for food. Gawd it was hilarious. It loved ham.

But yeah, the cashew fruit were the weirdest thing....