Friends back in the States blink in bewilderment when I describe one of the biggest surprises of my first nine months in Colombia: The fruit. No kidding.
Before moving here, I based my conception of Colombian agriculture on a quaint picture I saw somewhere. A burro lugged sacks of coffee beans down a green mountainside. Banana trees waved to the wind on a hacienda somewhere. I imagined hidden fields of coca plants. Weed. Like that.
Instead, the locally grown fruit in the markets has been a revelation. Bins burst with colors and smells never known to me before … and my guess is that I easily could list 25 Colombian fruits and vegetables unknown to the average United States household. I’ve seen 20 kinds of potatoes, at least.
Of course, we have the usual fruit stand suspects here—bananas and grapes and apples and other table fare familiar to U.S. taste buds. Let me now offer, though, an introduction to seven fruits most gringos from my part of the world probably never tasted … or even imagined.
Granadilla
A little grenade? The burnt-orange fruit fits perfectly in the palm of one hand, and a little stem, like a fuse, juts from one end. It’s just the right weight and size to lob into a machine-gun nest. Luckily, granadillas taste too good to throw—I enjoy one almost daily, usually during a mid-day walk to escape the writing desk.
A first encounter with a granadilla does takes a little bravery. On cracking through the fruit’s crusty orange peel, one finds inside a membranous sack. A wary poke through its webbing reveals a gelatinous slurry of juicy, clear seeds with black centers. Honestly, it looks for all the world like a mass of frog eggs. Colombians spoon out these juice-filled hairs lining the ovary wall and swallow them, seeds and all … or just slurp them out, standing back from the fruit a little to avoid chin drips. Sweet and delicious, granadillas taste like the best frog eggs you ever ate.
Lulo
An indigenous mad scientist might have spawned this Frankenstein combination of orange, apricot, and tomato. Grown on bushes in the Andes, the lulo resembles a fuzz-covered, leather-skinned citrus fruit. (Sometimes you hear Colombians call it naranjilla, or little orange.) Sliced, you’d swear a yellow heirloom tomato lay before you, inviting a sandwich … but one shocking bite would quickly end that fantasy. Lulo tastes sour in its natural state. Colombians squeeze it and doctor the juice to make a very popular drink served in restaurants and many homes.
Guanábana
Oversized, bigger than a football, and covered with spines, this member of the custard apple tree family lolls like a curled green hedgehog among the less intimidating produce. It looks like the last thing you’d ever want to put in your mouth. That seems even more the case after Colombians wait for the guanábana to get just mellow enough to risk falling to pieces on contact. It’s perfect then for scooping out the pulpy white contents (think chicken and dumplings without chicken), straining away the black seeds, and blending the fruit into a drink thick as a milkshake. Smoothies, anyone?
Ciruelas
A type of hard plum, these tangy sweet fruits came to my attention thanks to a street vendor who stands with a little makeshift wooden stand in front of a local supermarket. He sells just two items, to my knowledge. I recognize the strawberries, of course, and this peddler’s dark, fat, juicy ones somehow always look better than the berries inside the store. The ciruelas equally seduce. About the size of a date, the fruit’s light red skin barely stretches enough to cover its large pale seed. As with boiled crawfish, eating ciruelas takes a lot of work for a tiny bit of delicious reward. (Big seed, little pulp.) Still, this fruit leaves a taste in the mouth you crave again and again. I even enjoy the ritual of buying them. The vendor has an aluminum cup—his device measures out 3,000 pesos worth, about a dollar—that he piles brim-full of fruit before dumping 20 or so in a wrinkled paper sack. He always throws in a small extra handful of ciruelas, with a wink. A little lagniappe goes a long way—I’ve never passed this vendor’s stand at the end of the day when he had fruit left for sale.
Cherimoya
Skip the custard for dessert. These native Andean fruits look like tiny green pumpkins. Cracked open, they ooze a fragrant yellow-white flesh that’s soft and thick like … well, like custard. Cherimoyas grow on scrubby trees famous for the wonderful smell of their flowers, a mix of pineapple and coconut fragrance. Like the potato, which migrated from its native home in the Andes to conquer the world, the cherimoya today grows not only in Central and North America, but as far away as Africa and India. The first time I tasted it, in my fiancée’s apartment here in Bogotá, I felt a rush of blood to the head à la Marcel Proust after he bit into that famous madeleine … only my flashback memory brought back chilled banana pudding in a big blue bowl, my grandmother’s special Sunday dinner dessert in Dothan, Alabama … back when I was innocent.
Tomate de árbol
The tree tomato, or tamarillo, makes a delicious tea, which I first tasted in a vegetarian restaurant, Girasole (Sunflower), in Cartagena. The raw fruit has vitamin and iron—and only about 40 calories. (Think of it as the healthy, upstanding member of the deadly nightshade family.) The egg-shaped fruit can be sliced in half, then sugared and scooped and spread on toast. Yellow tree tomatoes taste sweet, something like mango. The red ones, more tart, bring a pucker. Some cooks blend tree tomatoes into thick compotes or chutneys, and there’s even a recipe or two out there that combines them with apples in a strudel.
Curuba
I became fascinated with this light green cucumber-shaped fruit (also known as passion fruit) after being charmed by a classic Colombian children’s song, La Reina Curuba (The Queen Curuba).
The lyrics of the chorus and one verse enchant me:
La reina curuba y sus hijas curubitas
Con hilos de lluvia trenzan una coronita,
Se asoma la luna vestida de plata y seda
Salen todas las curubas bailando por la vereda.
Tiene la reina curuba una tropita de grillos
Que tocan toda la noche sus violines amarillos.
Hace la reina curuba pastelitos de ahuyama
Para que los pajaritos coman toda la semana.
My (rough) translation:
The queen curuba and her baby curubas
With threads of rain braid a little crown,
The moon dressed in silver and silk comes out
On all the curubas dancing in the town.
The queen curuba has an orchestra of crickets
That all night play their yellow violins.
The queen curuba makes pastries of pumpkin
For the birds to eat all week long.
The curuba grows on a long woody vine famous for its beautiful pink flowers. Colombians squeeze the juice out of queen curuba (and her babies) and mix it with milk. Those curubas sure make a tasty beverage.
Photo: Rosalba Tarazona, CC-BY
Charles McNair is Paste’s Books Editor emeritus. He served the magazine as writer, critic and editor from 2005-2015.