Thursday, November 08, 2007

Strange fruit, my mom and me


Today I bought a grenadilla because I had never seen one before. Isn't it pretty? It caught my eye immediately and as I reached out to actually purchase it so we could try it at home I thought, "I'm just like my mom." When we were kids every now and again my mom would bring home some interesting fruit to try. I still remember the sharp and tart taste of star fruit. Yum! More recently she had us try stinky fruit (aka durian) - um, less of a favourite with me.

When we were kids, we'd pull out the encyclopedia (pre-Internet days) and look up the fruit and where it was from and learn even more. With the grenadilla I got on the net and didn't find too much. When I saw that it was also sometimes called passionfruit I got very, very excited.


On our honeymoon, Justin and I went to the Domenican Republic. I remember clearly the first time I saw a cut open passionfruit ripe for the eating. I thought it looked so horrible it must have gone bad. Eventually I got up the courage to eat it and LOVED it! I had passionfruit breakfast, lunch and dinner. They were smaller and from the outside didn't look like this beautiful grenadilla. But from the inside...


Doesn't that look cool? I was fascinated by the foozball inspired texture of the inside of the rind. And the inside, well, you can see what I mean about it taking courage to eat it.

Absolutely delicious. The grenadilla had a sweet, gentle flavour. I enjoyed every last bite.

11 comments:

Shannon said...

Go go adventurous Jamie! That is just the coolest and it does look like a passionfruit! I'm glad it was lovely and delicious :)

Anonymous said...

That is very cool, I don't think I've seen one of those before.

Suzie Ridler said...

I've never even had passion fruit, believe it or not, that looks awesome! Thank you also for the walk down memory land, it's true, Mom was always trying new things and I also loved learning about food. I'm making fennel tonight for the first time, I'm trying to be more adventurous with food too. Love this post and the pics!

Left-handed Trees... said...

Very interesting fruit! Glad to see your adventuring was sweet...
Love,
D.

Jana B said...

I'm happy that you like the passion fruit, but that looks SERIOUSLY disgusting.

Kudos to you for trying it!!!! lol

Melanie Margaret said...

How cool of your Mom and now you! The next time I am in the grocery store I will try to be more adventurous!

Tammy said...

What fun!! Starfruit I've tried, but never this - it really looks odd inside!

(I'm wondering - how did you make it to Friday so far ahead of me? Your post says Friday!!)

Ashley Anne said...

That is so interesting! Thanks so much for sharing the photos--I want to try one now!!

Anonymous said...

I'm not going to lie. That thing looks like death.

I don't know if I could force myself to eat it.

More for you, though, right??

Mindy said...

this entire post is such a wonderful metaphor for life :) so sweet indeed.

Jenn said...

Interesting how things are not always as they seem. The fruit looks so smooth and serene from the outside, but man, there's lots of stuff going on in the inside ;)! Glad you liked it. Love that you're so adventurous.