Family and Fruit

Day one in Brasil and it's been all about family and fruit. In someways these two words are interchangeable. families fruit and fruits come in families.

Families are constantly changing, flowing like a dynamic river and my family in Brasil keeps on growing too. A new edition since my last trip is little Lucinhas. We went to visit him at home during the afternoon. He was understandably cautious when we first arrived in the apartment. After a few minutes he was more comfortable around us and began to play. At just one year old he is already walking about and exploring the world unfolding before him. Being the youngest he gets lots of attention from all those around him including his older sister Juju. Yesterday evening when we met up with everyone for pizza he was perfecting his raspberry blowing technique with the help of his Grandma.

 

I have tried many fruits whilst in Brasil. One of my favourite drinks is fresh water melon juice - melancia. Yesterday whilst out shopping in a local super market we saw many new unrecognisable fruits. Among them was this one called Fruta do Conde or Fruta Pinha here in Brasil.

In English it is known as a sugar-apple or the custard apple. It grows on the Annona Squamosa plant - that is one cool name for a plant.

A google search told me this fruit is high in energy, an excellent source of vitamin C and manganese, a good source of thiamine and vitamin B₆, and provides vitamin B₂, B₃ B₅, B₉, iron, magnesium, phosphorus and potassium in fair quantities.

Inside it has a creamy white flesh that tastes a little like custard. Held with in the flesh are black seeds the size of kidney beans. From the picture you can see it's not the prettiest fruit. If we weren't encouraged to try it the look might have been enough to put me off.
 

In the supermarket I was being a classical tourist !!! taking pictures of the aisles of unusual looking items before me. I got to the fruta do conde and pointed at this strange 'to me' looking green bobble shape. The guy stacking the shelves picked one up and with a quick twist of the hand he'd broken the fruit in half. Kindly he passed it to us for a taste and boy what a sweet soft and delicious fruit this is. Quite sticky and slimy with a soft very sweet flesh that almost dissolves in the mouth.

I don't know what I was expecting it to look like on the inside or what it might taste like, but what I experienced was nothing like I'd imagined. Maybe I thought it would be less sweet more like an avocado or artichoke.

I am now on the look out for more exotic fruits to sample. Watch this space.

I can always recommend a trip to the local market to see what you can find to tantalise and educate the taste buds. In a UK supermarket we tend to find one type of bananas or orange. It's good to know there is more to fruit than I this small range. One of my favourite snacks is the tiny finger sized bananas. They get even smaller than the ones I'm holding in the picture below.