babaco

Fruit #11: babaco

It has been a while since we did a new fruit.

Two reasons for that:

#1, There aren't a whole lot of new fruits that are in season right now. I guess a bunch will be available in a month or two.

#2, This here babaco we have had for over a month. Yes, a month. We got it when it was green and researched that it needed to be yellow to eat. So we waited, and waited and waited. It took a month to ripen.

Was it worth the wait?

Um,....

no.

Not that it is bad, it just isn't anything special.

After we let it ripen, I heard that you can use it green in stir-fries and such, more like a vegetable than a fruit.

Babaco is also known as champagne fruit. It grows on a tree that looks kind of like a palm but apparently it only grows to be 6 or 7 feet high, even though these fruit are slightly over a foot long. They also grow well in pots on patios so I am rather tempted to try to grow one just for fun.

The skin is soft and edible, but tastes not so great. It has a pretty flower shape when you cut through it - would be great for decorative fruit baskets.... Once you get more to the middle of it, however, there is a hollow section and mushy, stringy part - kind of like the inside of a cantaloupe but without the seeds. The flesh is juicy and soft with a mild tart/sweet flavor - sort of melon like. Again, I don't seem to be great at describing the taste but I read that has hints of all kinds of other fruits' flavors in it.

Personally, I just think it tastes like babaco.

Since it such a large fellow, I cut up a little and kept it for the family to try (no one was really that crazy about it - but didn't hate it either) and made fruit crisp with the rest.

The kids mostly just ate the crisp and left the fruit.