Thursday, July 7, 2011

Granadilla ... crazy exotic fruit

Today my client walked into my office eating a very strange looking piece of fruit. Out of curiousity I asked her what it was and she told me it was called "Granadilla", which is a type of fruit grown in Colombia.

This fruit has a semi hard orange shell which you puncture with your fingers and can easily remove the pieces to reveal the seeds inside. Now these seeds are covered in this clear mucousy slime, which sounds disgusting but the seeds + slime taste delicious. It´s a sweet and refreshing flavour and you basically slurp up the seeds/slime mixture. Here´s a picture of what the fruit looks like:


Here is some more background info about Granadillas:
Granadilla is native to the Andes Mountains between Bolivia, Venezuela and Colombia. It grows as far south as northern Argentina and as far north as Mexico. Outside of its native range it grows in the tropical mountains of Africa and Australia (where they are known as passionfruit).

The fruit is orange to yellow colored with small light markings. It has a round shape with a tip ending in the stem. The fruit is between 6.5 and 8 cm long and between 5.1 and 7 cm in diameter.The outer shell is hard and slippery, and has soft padding on the interior to protect the seeds. The seeds, which are hard and black, are surrounded by a gelatinous sphere of transparent pulp. The pulp is the edible part of the fruit and has a soft sweet taste. It is very aromatic and contains vitamins A, C, and K, phosphorus, iron, and calcium.

The main producers are Peru, Venezuela, Colombia, Ecuador, Brazil, South Africa, and Kenya. The main importers are the United States, Canada, Belgium, Holland, Switzerland, and Spain.

3 comments:

  1. How I miss my daily, sweet granadilla!
    Haven't found them in Belgium, though :(

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  2. I definitely remember eating one of these in March. Taking those little ooze-pods out is too funny, yet they taste so delicious.

    Delicious.

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  3. It's funny when people eat them and get them stuck to their face and you don't tell them.
    But they're definitely delicious to eat yourself too!

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