Inside the Cherimoya

This armadillo of a fruit caught my eye at the grocery store the other day.

It’s a heavy fruit native to the high altitude areas of Peru, Ecuador, Colombia, Chile, Bolivia, and Argentina.  Supposedly, it tastes like a fruity custard when you make it through its armour.

I picked a weighty unripe fruit up and paid for it (a whopping $6.37!) and brought it home.  Then I did some research.

I ripened it at room temperature for several days.  When the cherimoya is ready to eat it should feel like a ripe avocado and yield to the touch.

It’s supposed to brown a little bit on the outside, but not too much.

Unfortunately, I noticed that mine was now splitting, and I could see mould on the stem.  Fruit gets shipped to Newfoundland in weird ways.  It’s either totally unripe and spoils by the time it gets here or it ripens in seconds.  This was obviously part of the former category.  It was time to crack it open and see what was inside.

Cut the sucker in half.  The white stuff inside is supposed to be super soft and juicy, but mine just looked hard and unappetizing.

The seeds are toxic, so don’t eat those.

I hacked off a chunk and took a bite.  Nope, definitely not ripe.  It tasted like Labrador tea and I can’t get it out of my mouth!  Maybe I’ll try cherimoya again when I get off this island.

You can read more about the cherimoya here and here.