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The Fruit of Knowledge of Good and Evil
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I’ve eaten it.

I just got back from an eight-day vacation in Rio de Janeiro. Having consistently been told to try every unfamiliar fruit we came across, my travelmates and I raided the fruit stands and juice shops for the new and exotic. We appreciated açaí, the crazy caloric berry goop that’s somehow acquired a reputation as a quasi-health product. We loved the omnipresence of mango and passion fruit. But the flavor that obsessed us at the juice shops was something the locals called “graviola,” which we didn’t find at any fruit stands, so we didn’t know what it looked like. At the fruit stand, we fell for a spiny, green confection called the custard-apple.

On one of our last days in Rio, we passed by a street market where all kinds of fruit were being sold. There, we discovered a fruit called the “cherimoya,” described to us as a hybrid of the graviola and the custard-apple. I bought three.

The cherimoya tastes like a glazed orgasm marinated in ecstasy. “Custard apple” is a reasonable description, although it fails to capture anything of the fruit’s divinity; it’s got a texture resembling custard, and the apple probably comes closest in taste. Fittingly, one can only eat the cherimoya in little tantalizing bites; the seeds and shape prevent you from taking a mouthful. I’m thinking God added the seeds right after He kicked Adam and Eve out of Eden for eating the thing.

If this had been what Turkish Delight tasted like, I would totally understand Edmund’s willingness to become the White Witch’s man-whore.

Brazil also brought me my first tastes of ostrich, which was yummy, albeit a tad overhyped; and piranha, which except for the minor thrill of hypothetical cannibalism was unexciting.

Disclaimer: After all this hype, three of you are going to go to Brazil and tell me you find the cherimoya too sweet. To each his own. For you, the graviola, the custard-apple, or the sugar-apple might be the devil’s fruit. I’m guessing the entire Annona genus has been forbidden by God.

7 comments

My time in SE Asia was graced with a lovely abundance of mangosteen and pomelos, but my favorite discovery there (weird because it’s actually from the Americas) was dragonfruit. Kiwiesque, but blander, and yet somehow more delicious.

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Have you tried Durian, Matt? If the cherimoya is from Eden, the Durian must have been cultivated by a wandering Cain in the Land of Nod. I have never been so seduced by a flavor and so repulsed by an odor as I have been with this fruit. It taunts me!

Interestingly, the Durian makes an appearance in Super Mario Sunshine as the only tropical fruit Mario can’t pick up (the spiky outside of the fruit looks like a torture device). He must instead kick it from one place to another.

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“Taste’s like heaven, smells like hell” as the Chinese say. Here’s a photo my friend took while we were in SE Asia. The hotel apparently forbids durian, I guess because of the smell. We couldn’t tell if it was a joke or not.

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No joke. Every hotel I’ve stayed at in Thailand & Cambodia had either a sign or note somewhere forbidding durian in the building.

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Nope, I haven’t tried durian, but coincidentally enough, I just discovered that the new Thai restaurant four blocks from my house serves it on sticky rice for dessert. I’m a little afraid of it now — the Metroblogger’s description says “its flavor seems to be a more or less unfathomable blend of mango, soft cheese, onions, sweat socks and pineapple custard.” But I’ll probably sample it in the spirit of adventure.

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Wandering through Chinatown last night I came on an ice cream place with durian flavor and asked for a taste spoon in honor of Snarkmarket. It was most foul. I think I can only enjoy durian in more diluted form.

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