Tamarillo! my new favorite fruit.

TAMARILLO !

The Mystery Fruit is Solved.
Thank you to all who participated! Many of you were spot on. The rest of you were close or had great guesses.

The lovely Tamarillo is sweet & savoury
tomatoey & melony
elusive like a papaya,
enigmatic fruit like cucumber,
gorgeous to look at
deeply scented like a handsome farmer,
"rich in vitamin E but low in carbohydrates,"
photogenic
sexy



Tamarillo. Tamarillo. O Tamarillo!



Tamarillos are
edible
raw
or cooked



seedy, crunchy, jelly-like
voluptuous
strong
quirky
strange

Tamarillos straddle many fences.
Not everyone will like them.

Tamarillos will keep you on your toes.
And tease you
taunt
with their
je ne sais quoi
flavour.

What is the Tamarillo flavour?
Sun ripened tomato  melon  papaya  guava  red beet.



Tamarillos are the pride of New Zealand.
Yet another reason to go there.

*


This post is dedicated to Keith, who first introduced me to the Tamarillo with his poetic words about Tamarillo Jelly (jelly is something very different outside of the States) and then brought me to The Modern Pantry where I experienced poached tamarillo in Greek yogurt, garnished with New Zealand's famous Manuka honey. After that I was never the same. Obsessed.

So, thank you Anna Hansen for introducing London, and me, to this magnificent fruit!

This post is also dedicated to Bea Vo of her eponymous bakery, Bea's of Bloomsbury. Last week I had the honour of playing in her illustrious kitchen and she sent me home with a flat of raw tamarillos!

And you? Do you have a fondness for this fruit? What do you love about it? What do you do with it?

Comments

[Tartelette]

Poached over Greek yogurt...simply delicious indeed! I have not had it in a long time but yes, ranks high among my favs!
Gorgeous pictures!

[Liz]

I can't eat them, and they're everywhere here in NZ (I'm allergic) :(

[joyciel]

...I bought those fruits before. The store said it was a passionfruit. This is explains so much! Like why it tasted nothing like passionfruits...

[Sophie]

MMMMMM...what a lovely ode to this yummie fruit!
Well written!

[Sarah]

I just wanted to let you know that I have awarded your blog the 'One Lovely Blog' award!

Please go to

http://lemoulinaeau.blogspot.com/2009/06/one-lovely-blog-awards.html

to see how it works.

[Jeremy]

Don't forget Peter Gordon!

While I know what you're saying here, Jeremy, I have never met or seen the fellow. Nor have I eaten at Providores. Also, He and Anna were partners there, so who's to say she didn't come first on the Tamarillo tip? just sayin' ~ shuna

[jeff]

Wow, I have never heard of these, I really want to try it out. The other fruit that I really want to try is the bread fruit. Neither of these are easy to find in the U.S. though.

[Lou]

I saw these at Borough market yesterday, and after reading your post had to buy some! I'm not sure what I'm going to do with them yet, I want to try one raw and unadulterated. As a nod to it's antipodean origins I'm thinking perhaps a tamarillo pavlova.

[inkywasfat]

deeply scented like a handsome farmer,
"rich in vitamin E but low in carbohydrates,"
photogenic
sexy

Those lines made me smile. Thanks.

[Bron]

Tamarillo are great in savoury dishes too, I often substitute whole peeled tomatoes in recipes, especially curries etc. They're also fantastic in clafoutis.

Sadly they don't grow in the Sth Island of NZ and for some reason they're rather expensive down here this year.

Here are a couple Tamarillo ideas from my blog. I hope you're cool with me sharing them :-)

Bron! These are fantastic links with mouth watering photos! Thank you so much. Great ideas.

The only something I would ask is that you write the HTML to hyperlink your URLs in the comments section here. I wrote How To Create Links In Your Comments a while back for just this purpose. ~ Shuna