"tropical fruit" news and stories

Imagine if grapefruits turned greenish, shrank to the side of golf balls and lost their hard pith. That's the duku for you. Lansium Duranum, known in various languages as langsat, lansone, kokosan, gadu guda, lon bon and longkong duku grows throughout the tropical zones of Asia. They grow in clusters on trees, and are usually bought by the bunch. To eat a duku, cut it in half and simply squeeze until the fleshy lobes pop out of their jackets. It tastes remarkably like grapefruit, though some find it even more bitter (I don't). Duku are not widely available in the US (have any of you seen them?) but are ubiquitous in Malaysia, Indonesia, the Philippines and other parts of Southeast Asia.

I know that it has been a while since I first mentioned my pineapple plant. If you recall, I was having some difficulty growing it because I followed less-than-wonderful directions when I began my quest. Thanks to the support of several excellent commenters, I decided to give it another go. Unfortunately, after the first few weeks, it looked as though the plant might not make it. I had it potted and outdoors in a sunny place, but it was first met with unseasonable cold then a massive heat wave. Some of the leaves began to brown and I figured that I had yet another failed plant on my hands.

I failed to pay close attention to it for a few weeks and, when I looked closely yesterday, what did I see? New growth at the center of the plant! You can see the contrast between the new leaves and the outer ones in the picture.

Who knows if it will ever bear any fruit for me, but frankly I'm pleased just to know that I don't have a "brown thumb" when it comes to pineapple growing.

Last year I tried to plant a pineapple. Actually, I tried three times. Each time, I bought a nice, fresh, organic pineapple at Whole Foods and, after eating the fruit itself, I prepped the crown for planting. The first time, I left some of the fruit attached to the crown and the plant did not do so well. After finding this nifty guide online, I learned that I should have cleaned away any remaining bits of fruit before planting, as the way the fruit decomposes in the soil would is not conducive to growth. Scratch plant number one.

Following the directions from the same guide, I cut away the stem to expose the "root buds" on the crown. The website also recommended drying the crown for several days before planting. Seven days later, my crown was clearly dead and unfit for planting. Two strikes.

Undeterred, I trimmed a third crown, dried it for only one day (a warm day) and popped the top into some potting soil. I made sure it had light, tried to keep it warm (even in winter) and I didn't over-water it. And yet it looks exactly the same as it did a year ago: some of the leaves are a bit brown, others are still green and it clearly has not gotten any larger. I'm reasonably certain that it isn't dead, and yet I have real doubts as to whether it will ever progress beyond its current state.

Depressed about my pineapple prospects, I searched for a couple more resources and finally found someone in Southern California who has successfully grown pineapples! While this has renewed my hopes about growing my own, I am still wondering whether the project is worth it. How many times should you try before you give up on growing a plant?

Growing up, I always knew this fruit as a Spanish lime. Then, a Jamaican friend came over and started calling them genips. A few years later, a Puerto Rican friend told me they were also called quenepas. Since then, I've also heard that they're called mamoncillos in other parts of the Caribbean. In Panama, I think they're called mamones. Wikipedia has a page with still more names.

Despite what I still call them, they're not limes at all. Actually, they're in the same family as lychees, which makes sense considering their similarly leathery skin. Beneath this green skin is a large seed coated in a slimy, peach colored flesh, which actually tastes a bit like a lime. If you happen to see them in a market, be sure to get fruit with unwrinkled, uncracked skin. The most common way of eating them is to remove the skin and suck the pulp from the seed. However, I've also heard of soaking the peeled fruit in rum and sugar to make a drink.

[Photo: Nick Vagnoni]

While tamarind paste has been available in Asian markets for a long time, it's exciting to see fresh tamarinds popping up more frequently in produce sections. The woody outer pods are brittle and don't travel well, so the offerings in grocery stores usually aren't very pretty. Even if the pods are broken, what you want to look for is mahogany-colored flesh that doesn't look pale or dried out. Also, check the outer shell for tiny holes (see below), as bugs are fond of laying eggs in tamarind pods. The flavor of tamarind is similar to a dried apricot, but more tart. Once the meat has been removed from the pods and stripped of its veins, it can be boiled, seeded, sweetened with sugar, and diluted for a great cold drink. Tamarinds are also a key ingredient in pad Thai recipes. Alton Brown recently made a good version of it, similar to the Cook's Illustrated version I usually make. Boiling, mashing and straining three or four large tamarinds usually works for the ounce or two of tamarind paste that the recipes call for.

[Photos: Nick Vagnoni]