CHRIS' CORNER of Culinary Delights - EPISODE 3: FRUIT OF COLOMBIA

Colombia is a rich playground for the fruit connoisseur.  One afternoon in Bogota, we decided to pay a visit to the local produce market to sample the wealth of new offerings available to us.  Before digging in, we assembled our fruit lineup for a photo shoot:

The fruit lineup

Just look at these things.  This is but a handful of the offerings present at the local market.  We chose a few smaller fruits that we could sample and finish in one sitting, but also present at the market was a wide variety of other specimens, each with its own unique character.  So, let's dig in:

Digging in

We decided to start with the strangest looking fruit.

A pitaya.

This is a type of pitaya, which is the fruit of a cactus-like plant.  As you can see, the inside is full of a gelatinous goop with small black seeds.  We assumed you were supposed to eat the insides, and did so with a spoon.  

Eating the pitaya.

The taste was pleasant.  It had a semi-sweet flavor which danced upon the tongue.  I would later declare this my favorite of the five fruits in the fruit line-up.  Upon doing some further research, it appears that the pitaya is on the brink of being declared the next trendy super-fruit in the U.S. due to its supposed health-benefits.  This made sense to us, as the pitaya was also by far the most expensive of the five fruits we purchased.  Someone is undoubtedly poised to make a fair penny peddling these, as well as many products derived from it.  I would have it again simply for the taste!

Next up was the oblong green thing, which, uncut, had the approximate feel of a water balloon, clearly full of some sort of liquidy substance:

The curuba, a.k.a. the banana passionfruit.

It was soon evident that the water balloon feel was due to a very thin skin and yet another gelatinous filling of slightly larger seeds, each within its own jelly-like environs.  This was yet another fruit to be consumed with a spoon.  This one had a very sour taste, which I would call uncannily similar to the taste of Sour Patch Kids candy.  If you like the candy, you'd probably like this fruit.  Still, the degree to which this fruit is sour probably makes it difficult, if not impossible, to eat more than one of these at a time.  We had a hard time finishing ours between the two of us.

Eva, upon sampling the curuba.

Next up was the orange deal with the stem:

A granadilla.

Eva, spooning 'snot'.

This is called a granadilla, and of the five we sampled, is probably the most widely-consumed in Colombia.  They are available everywhere and we frequently had them with breakfast.  This is yet another fruit that must be de-spooned.  The Colombians call the inside moco, which roughly translates to snot.  This has a very pleasing taste, sweet and sour at once - though much sweeter and less sour than the banana passionfruit.  Eva later declared this one her favorite of the lot.

Next was the yellow fruit on the far right of our fruit lineup:

A maracuya, or passion fruit.

This is a maracuya, which is essentially a passion fruit.  It tasted just like the passion fruit we are familiar with, though much more potent.  Passion fruit varietals are widely consumed (and juiced) in this part of the world.  While these are typically very expensive in North American grocery stores, here they are cheap and abundant.

We saved the one we knew would likely be the worst for last.  We had read that the lulo fruit, which is often used as an ingredient in fruit juices, but diluted with other fruits, is virtually inedible on a standalone basis due to how sour it is.  We decided we needed to find out:

A lulo.

The inside was a very dark green - almost black.  It had very little pulp and a lot of juice.  It needed to be sliced into wedges and then bitten into, like a very juicy orange.  The verdict - they were right.  It was indeed sour, and we didn't finish this one.  It did have an interesting flavor and would indeed be a good tartener for juices, but this is not a fruit to be eaten straight up.

Thus ended our Colombian fruit experiment.  One additional fruit worth mentioning is the guanabana.  We did not buy one of these because they are very lage - typically a bit larger than a football.  They are used primarily to make a widely consumed juice in Colombia.  There are lots of street vendors throughout Bogota serving guanabana juice made on the spot.  To make the drink, the juice of the guanabana is typically mixed with milk and served ice cold.  We sampled this a couple of times and it is sensational.  This is something we are definitely going to try to locate when we get back home.

Guanabana

Eva's guanabana juice