All you need is fruit…..

We used to watch a program on the BBC about wines…  There were two enthusiastic  presenters, a woman with blond curly hair and a more or less bald man. As they tasted the wines they would always start to contemplate their first sip and then cry out hmmm nutty, hmm hmm fruity…. As I provide the nutty bit of life myself… all I need to get is the fruity side.

Brazil is a very fruity place. Of course we all know bananas, water melons (melancia), pineapples (abacaxi), apples and pears…. Bananas come in different sorts: the large hard banana da terra (banana from the earth) to fry, the small banana maça (apple banana) and the more common banana nanica (our banana)

But there are also more fruits. Acerola; a kind of cherries for making juice or jelly. Maracuja; the fruit of the passionflower. 

Yellow (unripe) caqui, red acrerolas, green maracuja....

Juice of acerola

Mamão = papaya

I love the mamãos; that we call papaya. The seeds are so beautiful (don't eat them).

Then there are the real exotic fruits: Fruta de conde (fruit of the count); a very messy fruit. I wonder what count had time to eat that one. They look like little porcupines. This should at least make you be ware. Innumerable little seeds hidden in the white flesh.

Frute de conde = fruit of the count

Red caqui that is delicious and easy to eat. I was presented one that was still yellow (fresh from the tree), but in no time it became ripe and red like a tomato.

Caqui and frute de conde in the market

Sometimes we buy pinhão. The giant seeds of huge pine cones from large pine trees. First cook them for a good hour and then you peel them and eat them. They taste very good with a glass of wine.

Huge pine cones

At the market the fruit is fresh and cheap. Don’t forget to sit down and drink some água de côco (coconut milk) before you go home…..