Another tropical fruit - Kumquat or Cumquat

I discovered kumquat for the first time when I went to Costa Rica. Soon after discovering this fruit I started making jam out of it. Most of all I like the texture of the jam - the fruit`s skin stays firm and makes a nice mixture with its flesh. The flesh of the fruit separate from the skin makes it very different and unique jam texture.

The way I used to make my jam was with kumquat, white sugar, pectin, lemon and, of course, water. It has been a long time since I cooked kumquat jam. I think it was in Puerto Rico, because a friend of mine used to own a tree and we`d do exchange - fruits for jam. But it`s very costly in Canada; it`s also the fact that it`s not available at the market all the time.

Another Exotic Fruit - Jackfruit

The Jackfruit is the biggest fruit in the world. It was brought from India and often confused with Dorian (the smelly one), but it's not. Though it does have slightly unpleasant smell, the taste outweighs the drawback. The yellowish soft and flaky sweet pulp is eaten raw, boiled or fried. The large white seeds are also good roasted tasting something like chestnuts.
The tree grows to a height of 50 ft. Its fruits are very unusual and they weight up to 70 pounds each and are up to 3 ft long. They are borne all along the trunk of the tree.

Another Exotic Fruit - Coconut

 

Coconut is one of the most economically valuable fruits because of various ways of making products out of it. It can be used to make coconut oil, coconut milk, coconut cream, even the bark can be used as lumber, etc.
For myself one of the most fascinating things is the fact that coconut is a seed. It's the biggest seed there is. And the tree is reproduced inside the coconut itself, so this is one of the reasons that coconut trees are growing all over the world.
A coconut shell would just fall off the tree into the ocean and then would be spread through the water to other places on earth, where it would germinate and grow itself to a new environments as long as the weather is warm.

Another Exotic Fruit - Star fruit or Carambola

The Star Fruit is more suitable for presentation, rather than eating. It looks very fresh and I always use to decorate salads with it. Its shape makes it look like stars, which is unconventional and appealing.
Although the fruit is completely edible with its waxy skin, the flesh is quite crunchy and very juicy, which makes it suitable for pressing it to make fresh juice. The texture is similar in consistency to grapes when ripe and feels like pepper when still green.

Carambolas are best eaten when ripe - when they are yellow with a light shade of green. They will also have brown ridges at the five edges and feel firm.
As I mentioned earlier I used it mostly for decoration. Sometimes I would just put them in a crystal bowl by themselves.

Another Exotic Fruit - Mamey

I used to grow Mamey trees when I lived in Puerto Rico. I bought the seed and planted it outside my house. I started from the pot and then switched it to the ground. It took it 3-4 month to grow in the pot first. It's easier to transplant it to the ground when the root system is already strong enough and a bit bigger than the pot itself.

It took the tree around 2-3 years to grow into a big tree and give fruits. The fruit itself takes around 6 month to become ripe and ready to pick. To know that it's ripe you have to scratch the skin of the fruit with ease and it has to be soft and orangy.
The pulp of the fruits tastes like papaya. It's tender and has very nice aroma. Normally we'd eat the fruit fresh just spooning the pulp out.

Pineapple

Pineapple is one of my favorite fruits. It tastes very sweet and sourish and its texture is hard, but at the same time the fruit itself is very juicy.
The first time I visited Puerto Rico I was extremely surprised to see the pineapple farm. I was really expecting to see it grow on a tree. Imagine my surprise when I discovered that it grows on a plant.
There are couple of interesting facts about pineapples that I've found:
- Did you know that each pineapple plant only produces just one pineapple per year?
- Would you ever imagine that if they are left to their own devices to grow and not picked up in first two years, they can actually reach up to 9kg (20lbs).
And I don't have to mention how good pineapples are for you when they are served with meat, i.e. as meat tenderizers.

You can visit http://www.howtocutapineapple.com to learn to cut and serve it.