Luckily for me, I found a way to eat these fruits without traveling to my home state. Mexico is much closer than Hawaii and significantly less expensive. It helps that I'm new to Tulum so I'm not running into people who've known me my entire life.
Mangoes are currently in season here. In Hawaii, they are a summer fruit. Seems in the Caribbean they start a little earlier than Hawaii. My mom used to bring back mangoes she'd receive from people who lived in warmer areas of Maui (mangoes require warmer temperatures to grow and ripen). The bottom drawer of our refrigerator was always full with mangoes. There are many varieties of mangoes. Here in Tulum I've been buying the Altoufo variety. They are an even color of saffron yellow on the outside and a slightly brighter, orange tinted yellow on the inside. The flavor is succulently sweet, the texture isn't stringy at all but more creamy. To me it's perfect and I'm so happy when eating them.
Passion fruit (maracuyá in Spanish or lilikoi in Hawaiian) is a tangy fruit full of edible seeds inside of sac-like structures, similar to, but not exactly like pomegranates. The outside is either bright yellow for a dark violet. Passion fruit grow on vines and the flowers are incredibly stunning. The smell of a passionfruit when you cut it open is vibrant even intoxicating. Passion fruit is delicious fresh and a beautiful addition to gelato, sorbet, cheesecake, créme bruleé or even eclair filling like my friend Alana does here . Not only do passion fruit taste incredible, they're great for your health as well. But really any fresh fruit is beneficial to your mind, body and stomach.
Lychee (Litchi) apparently will be in season here in the summer. I wasn't sure I could get them locally as I've only had them in Hawaii and Southeast Asia and hadn't thought to research it even. I really can't wait to have all my favorite tropical fruits at the same time. The best part is that they won't come from thousands of miles away which means they'll taste that much better.
I haven't even begun to cover the surface of tropical fruits that are available around here and in Mexico as a whole. But writing about them would become more of an encyclopedia about fruit so I stuck to my absolute favorites.
Altoufo mangoes at a grocery stand
The perfect mango
Passion fruit (Maracuyá) gelato in Playa del Carmen
I really enjoyed reading this your description of the fruits are amazing my mouth was just watering while reading. Great job! I am looking forward to reading more.
ReplyDeleteThank you!
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