Fruit Tastings, Year Two

On our visit to Georgia, I decided to reprise my exotic fruit tasting adventure from last summer. What fun. We went back to the same two farmer's markets, but I picked totally different fruits this time (except for guava, but this guava was totally different.) Here are the results:

I found three that I did not like at all: Dragon fruit, Horn Melon, and Papaya. I don't think it was the fruits' fault though. Dragon fruit was so beautiful it really raised my expectations. The taste wasn't awful, it just wasn't as fabulous as the outside made me think it would be. Horn Melon must have some use other that eating it straight because it has absolutely no flavor. And then there is papaya - again, my expectations were too high. I fully expected to love papaya, but didn't like it at all!

And then there were three that were OK - not great, but definitely likeable: Korean melon, Pepino melon, and guava. The Pepino melon tasted like a combination of every melon you've ever had, which was fun. The Korean melon was a richer tasting honeydew melon, and the guava, well it tasted like guava, though I didn't like it as much as last year's pink guava. 

And now for my absolute favorites - the fruit I would eat again and again if I could: Mangosteen, Guinep, sour and sweet Tamarind, and Jackfruit, glorious jackfruit! Now, I'd had mangosteen juice, but a conversation with a Thai woman in the stored informed me that mangosteen juice is made from the skin of the fruit, while you eat the white flesh inside - oh how yummy it was!! Guinep reminded me of lychee in looks - eyeballs - but its taste is very unique, wonderfully so! Tamarind, sweet or sour, is just divine! There is nothing I didn't like about it. And now for my absolute favorite: Jackfruit! WOW!! It looks extraterrestrial, which in and of itself is cool; it tastes like everything good about tropical summer: bananas, mangos, peaches, mystery, heat, love, joy, everything heavenly and sweet! I adore jackfruit! I even tried a few boiled jackfruit seeds, which I think taste like mashed potatoes without butter and milk (which would normally be bad, but works in jackfruit seeds.)

I had a ball tasting all these lovely fruits, Gloria, my stepmom, had fun eating them with me and telling me stories about growing up eating many of these in her native Phillipines, and my dad and Michele had fun refusing to taste anything and watching me eat too much jackfruit and get an upset stomach! A grand time was had by all!