The feijoa, otherwise known as the pineapple guava, is something I found at the store recently. It's a small egg shaped little fruit that's surprisingly delicious and for an exotic fruit, surprisingly affordable. It normally grows in Uruguay, Brazil, and Colombia.It's fresh and aromatic, and has a bit of a minty kiwi taste to it. It sounds bad, but the inner flesh is totally shibby. Only the inner flesh that is, the seedy part is sweet, soft and yummy, the avocado looking flesh around it is like the bitterest lemon ever.
The seedy part can be scraped out and eaten with the teeth, or
spooned out and put into a fruit salad or maybe onto fresh salsa or vanilla ice cream.Buying them however is kinda hit and miss. It's not easy to tell if they're over ripe or not as the outside shows few signs, and going by feel is almost impossible to do unless you are familiar with them. They should be somewhat firm with a bit of give.
If you see one, pick it up and give it a try! It's one of the tastiest fruity treats that South America has to offer.
Feijoa at Wikipedia
Hey! this post is really timely. i was at the market today when i stumbled upon the feijoa but had no guts to get it. tomorrow i will go grab a few. =)
ReplyDeleteHello Garette.Growing up in India,Guavas are every kid's dream snack.Raw or ripe,green,yellow or red,we would constantly up on the tree to pluck a few or throw rocks at them until they fell!!:D
ReplyDeleteUnripe Guavas are to eat with salt and chilli pd mix,ripe ones are soft enough to gulp it down in 4 bites.
Since I am here now,no such luck for me.Great to read about those,made me nostalgic:)
They are really tasty. Used to grow them back home and you can buy them here on occasion. The type that is common here is very thin skinned and quite aromatic when ripe. There is also no sourness in the skin such as what you describe.
ReplyDeleteA very very nice fruit and if you like this you should try the strawberry guava - delicious!
ellen - glad I was of help! :)
ReplyDeleteasha - sounds like a lot of fun, i don;t think i've ever had guava fresh
rob - LOL, well mine had bitter/sour skins. i'll keep an eye out for those strawberry guavas ;)
Shibby :)... Guava is my favorite fruit too, but not sure if the pineapple guava is the same guava in India...
ReplyDeleteYou have a hilarious blog here, the preggers and the peon post was just laugh out loud funny!
I'm with asha on this one....specially love it with the salt and chilli pd ...yumm..now i'm missing india :((
ReplyDeleteI'm a total feijoa virgin! Thanks for the info; I'll be on the lookout for these.
ReplyDeleteI think I forsee a new cupcake recipe in your future.
Garrett, in all my years in Brazil I had never seen this fruit. First time I tasted it, was here in California.. And I know of many Brazilians who never heard of it. It's almost ironic. ;-)
ReplyDeleteVery interesting.. I must search for it on the market.
ReplyDeleteIt's so funny that you're blogging about feijoas, and that they're an exotic fruit where you are - they're kind of the ignored fruit in southern Australia, where I am posting from (hi!) - they grow in suburban gardens and the fruit just falls to the ground and rots most of the time because they're not apples. I absolutely love them and was amazed on a recent trip to New Zealand, where you can get them in juices everywhere. Go the kiwis! Maybe I should move - they have a female prime minister, have a healthy attitiude towards their indigenous population...and they're not scared of feijoas. Yay!
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