To All,
Act I: Patience Results in Disappointment [Written in May 2014]
At Market Basket on 8 May 2014 I stumbled upon a bizarre-looking fruit called a cherimoya. It was green and had a faint tracery of armor plating, which made it look prehistoric; see the picture below from the Internet. Not knowing what it was and under the spell of prudence, I decided to be patient and refrained from buying it. Later, at home, I looked at what the Internet had to say and found that it was praised immoderately as one of the tastiest fruits. In fact, I found that my hero, Mark Twain, while in Hawaii in June of 1866 as a travel writer, had high praise for the cherimoya.
We had an abundance of mangoes, papaias and bananas here, but the pride of the islands, the most delicious fruit known to men, cherimoya, was not in season. It has a soft pulp, like a pawpaw, and is eaten with a spoon.--The Sacramento Daily Union, October 25, 1866 (available at http://www.twainquotes.com/18661025u.html).
This set me on fire to have a cherimoya, and I was kicking myself for not grabbing it when I had the chance. Moreover, the Internet also informed me that it was right at the end of the season. Two weeks later, I was back at Market Basket, but, alas, the cherimoya was not. I hope Market Basket decides to stock it next year.
Act II: Impatience Results in More Disappointment [Written in Oct 2014]
As the months rolled by, both Paul Hoxie and my nephew Erik seconded Mark Twain by recommending cherimoyas, so on 26 Oct 2014 I was gratified to find this fruit at Whole Foods. The Internet experts had cautioned me to only buy cherimoyas grown in the U.S. (This was not explained. Maybe the foreign ones need to be picked too early, or maybe the cherimoya does not stand up well to jostling during shipping.) The ones at Whole Foods were from Chile, but I was red hot to try one, so I threw caution to the winds since caution had not previously served me well with cherimoyas, ignored the Internet experts, and purchased one.
My cherimoya is about the size and shape of a large apple but denser. My cherimoya, at 0.73 pounds and a whopping $8.99 per pound, cost $6.56.
I went to https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hLLcXP8FTPk to learn how to eat a cherimoya. (I found that the video I watched in Oct 2014 was no longer available, so I have substituted another one, not quite as satisfactory since it is made by an Internet bumbler.) All you need to do is cut it in half and then eat it like an apple by scraping the meat out with your incisors. The fastidious can use a spoon. Avoid the skin, which is sour, and avoid the seeds, which are poisonous. The seeds, which look like small, plump almonds, are easy to avoid and do not present a hazard to your teeth.
The Internet was ringing with praise for this fruit. In fact, only the durian (e-mail of 9 May 2015) is praised more highly. I eagerly dug in with a spoon, found it easy to extract a chunk of cherimoya, and popped it into my mouth. What a disappointment. It had an off-taste that was borderline unpleasant. It wasn't too bad, though, and I finished half of it in one sitting. It was not, however, the wonder fruit that I was hoping for. My conjecture is that the problem stems from this cherimoya being from Chile.
Here are pictures of my cherimoya.
- The intact cherimoya sitting on my cutting board.
- The cherimoya cut into halves. You can see the seeds peeking out. You can eat everything inside the peel except for the seeds, though you will probably want to discard the small trace of core.
- Half of the hollowed out peel after I have eaten it with spoon. You can see the twenty-two seeds from this half collected in the bowl. These are the handsomest seeds that the Fruit Explorer has encountered. They are like little chunks of mahogany.
The verdict is postponed until I give cherimoya another try. This will probably be next year when cherimoyas from the U.S. become available. I need to exercise patience.
Act III: Patience Combined with Impatience Results in Still More Disappointment [Written on 28 Mar 2015]
My reward for outlasting a tough winter and waiting for the new crop was that on 26 Mar 2015 the cherimoyas produced in the U.S. resurfaced at Market Basket. The price was a flat $5.99. I picked out a big one since I expected a heavenly taste. Since the one I selected weighed 1.17 pounds, the cost per pound was $5.12, so this is an expensive fruit.
I cut it open and went at it with a spoon. The first thing I noticed was that, rather than soft, the fruit was hard, and it was only with difficulty that I scooped some out. Bad sign. I shoveled a spoonful into my mouth. Big disappointment. It had roughly the texture of a carrot, and there was very little taste. At least the seeds are pretty. After reviewing the comments of Internet experts, I realized that I had impatiently eaten it before it was ripe; I should have waited 4 or 5 days until it was soft like an avocado. Here are pictures.
- The intact cherimoya sitting on my cutting board. This shows its good side.
- The cherimoya turned over to show that it is asymmetrical, unlike my first cherimoya.
- The cherimoya cut in two.
- The shell after I had scooped out and eaten half of my cherimoya. This half produced nine seeds.
- A close-up of the seeds after they were dry. (That is my hand. I washed it before taking the picture. This is standard practice among professional hand models.)
My faith in Mark Twain is unshaken, so my quest for the perfect cherimoya continues. Will the cherimoya become my white whale?
Act IV: Patience Combined with Inattentiveness Results in Yet Another Disappointment [Written 11 Apr 2015]
After realizing that I had eaten half of an unripe cherimoya, I decided to set the uneaten half on my kitchen window and let it ripen. I congratulated myself on such a shrewd plan that would allow me to recover from the blunder of 28 Mar 2015.
As it turned out, I forgot about my cherimoya for two weeks. When I looked back at it, it had gone bad. It went straight in the garbage. I didn't even make an attempt to salvage the seeds.
Act V: Patience Again Results in Thoroughgoing Disappointment [Written 5 Jun 2015]
All was not lost. I would just buy another cherimoya. After all, in 2014 the stores had cherimoyas into May. Again, I plumed myself on coming up with a dynamite recovery plan.
It turned out, however, that I got blanked. None of my stores had any cherimoyas for the rest of the season. My new plan is to wait until next year. I look forward to having an opportunity to channel Mark Twain.
The Lesson [Written 6 Jun 2015]
Consider my long string of blunders that was kicked off when I saw a cherimoya at the store on 8 May 2014, did not buy it since I did not know what it was, went home, discovered that it was highly praised, went back to the store, and found that the season had ended. Learning from this experience, when I saw the hitherto unknown sour orange, I made a blind buy rather than risk missing it. This fruit was inedible (e-mail of 17 July 2014). With this lesson of the evils of precipitate buying before me, when I found jack fruit at H Mart a couple of weeks later, I didn't buy it. Later, when I learned of its desirability, I had to make a special trip to Burlington for it (e-mail of 4 Aug 2014). With this caution against prudence holding sway, when I saw the unknown quince a few weeks later, I made an immediate buy, and this fruit proved to be inedible (e-mail of 4 Oct 2014). In short, the Fruit Explorer has been whipsawed by experience. Question: Prudence or decisive, blind buying, which is better? What's a poor Fruit Explorer to do?
Answer: Always buy. This will prevent me from missing fruits. Moreover, even if a fruit tastes bad, how will I know unless I experience it? Finally, even if it's bad, it might nevertheless be worth trying. For example, even though the sour orange was a gustatory failure, eventually I was glad that I had tried it because of the key role it played in the evolution and history of citrus fruit (e-mail of 17 Apr 2015).
The Cherimoya Plant
The cherimoya evolved in Ecuador, Colombia, and Bolivia, so it is a gift of the Andes like the potato, tomato, and avocado. The tree is evergreen and can grow to a height of 30 feet. Propagation is often done by grafting. Here are pictures from the Internet.
- The tree (two pictures).
- The flowers four pictures).. The flowers are hermaphroditic. They begin as female, but then the female parts wither and the male parts become active. The flowers must be cross-pollinated, and it is suspected that beetles are the primary pollinators. Honeybees, the workhorse pollinators, are too big to get to the sexual parts in the middle of the flower. One picture shows a cherimoya flower beinghand-pollinated, which is typically necessary when cherimoya is cultivated because of the unreliability of natural pollinators; beetles can't be trusted.
- The fruit (four pictures).
- The seeds (two pictures). None of the pictures in this e-mail do justice to the shimmering beauty of the cherimoya seeds.
Cherimoya Art
The first picture shows a cherimoya-inspired bottle made on the Peruvian coast in 700-1000 B.C.
Party Tip
Maybe I can't give you a verdict for the cherimoya, but I can give you a party tip, which is to allow your guests to do seed paintings. That is, just as the Navajos do sand paintings, your guests can do seed paintings with the Cherimoya seeds. As your guests consume their cherimoyas, be sure that they save the seeds. After all the seeds are collected, divide both your guests and the seeds into two groups. Ask the first group to collaborate on doing a seed painting of representational art, and ask the second group to do an abstract painting. If your guests have a hard time getting started, you can suggest topics. For example, you might suggest that the first group do a dog and that the second group do freedom of speech. Take a picture of each painting. Give the pictures to your guests and add the paintings to your growing collection of fruit art. In your will bequeath this collection to the Museum of Fine Arts.
Alternative: If your guests rebel at being forced to once again become impromptu artists, get your electric drill and put a hole through each seed. Your guests can then revert to summer camp mode and string the seeds to make necklaces. Your gift idea is to give the necklaces to the guests who did not complain about the prospect of seed painting. If all complained, give the necklaces to the jewelry hounds on your Christmas list, who will be able to strut their stuff while wearing a necklace that will draw admiring glances from all.
