Fruit has always played a big part in my life. As a child our fruit bowl at home was always full of apples, bananas, plums, peaches, cherries, kiwis, melon, pineapples etc. Mum always encouraged us to eat a lot of fruit something that my brother Peter definitely took to heart as he is a fruit machine! So when I started to research the fruit in Columbia I began to get pretty excited.
I set myself a goal to try as many fruits as possible in my short time here.
Pitahaya- (Dragon fruit)
The spiky skin attracted me to try this fruit first. Once you cut it in half a white filling with small black seeds is revealed. It can be eaten scooped out with a spoon. It is delicious and sweet. I am looking forward to trying the pink variety in Asia.
Lulo – A very typical Colombian fruit that is only found there and in neighbouring Ecuador (where it’s known as naranjilla). Nathan wanted to try this one as it is said to taste like skittles. I myself did not think that I found it difficult to eat and a bit tart. Due to it's tartness it is mostly used to make juice that is said to taste of sherbet.
Gulupa – Columbia has many passion fruits this is a smaller, less common version with a dark purple skin. This inside is so delicious I could probably have eaten a hundred and still not been bored it was beautiful.
Granadilla – A round, orange passionfruit with crunchy blue seeds in the centre. Also very tasty.
Maracuya – This oval yellow passionfruit is the most common variety and absolutely delicious. So far it is definitely my favourite passion fruit in Columbia. To me it tasted like a wonderful grapefruit but sweeter.
Curuba – The banana passionfruit is beautiful and the so full of flavour.
Carambolo – The starfruit has a mild flavour and was a little bit of a let down. It is so beautiful and cool looking I expected it to be much sweeter and flavourful.
Tomate de Arbol –This was really nice a cross between a tomato and a fruit in my opinion. It tasted really good especially the fleshy part.
Feijoa – It looks like a small green cucumber with light white/brown flesh inside which you scoop out with a spoon. I liked this it felt more savoury than fruity.
Guayaba – The whole fruit is edible including the skin. The pink inside was lovely but the seeds were so hard.
Azucar Mango - Nathan and I have eaten so many mangoes in South America and they have been wonderful but I have to say this small one was the sweetest. You can see how juicy it is just from the photo, the taste is wonderful.
I can't believe I can't remember the name for this fruit. It was a more savoury taste and was really good. I am going back today to see if I can fun out.
Overall Columbia had some amazing fruits and I am so glad I made it my mission this week to try so many