Name this fruit

Aruba, September 2, 2012

Dear On Delay Blog Readers,

We are requesting your help in identifying this fruit.

Here is the outside. Diameter is about 9 inches. Pete describes it as a coconut with a yarmulke; although the skin is velvety and not hard like a coconut shell.

Here is the inside. It resembles a spaghetti squash in some ways. But the seeds are different: there are four big seeds with tasty, mildly sweet, somewhat fibrous pulp around them.

When we left Trinidad, our friend Harripaul gave us some beautiful pomelos straight from his tree. He also gave us a fruit which he had bought from a friend who is growing exotic fruit from Asia Pacific where the climate is similar to Trinidad’s. (For example, rambutan native to Malaysia and Indonesia has recently been introduced and is doing well; local rambutan was for sale in the supermarket and Harripaul has recently bought a little rambutan tree for his garden.)

Rambutan we know; but the fruit is new to us. We are offering a prize to the first reader who correctly identifies this fruit.

 

21 thoughts on “Name this fruit

    • Hi Andrew,
      Thanks for your reply. The shape of the unidentified fruit is completely round and had four seeds, not one. Skin color and flesh color sounds right but shape, seeds and origin rule it out. Keep searching 🙂
      Jane

    • No, the inside wasn’t like sapodilla. The wrinkle is that this is not a fruit that is known in Trinidad. Our friend who had lived all his life in Trinidad and is interested in food had only just discovered it. It’s just being introduced to Trinidad from the other side of the world — Malaysia? Indonesia? someplace like that.

  1. My friend Ludy, who grew up in the Phillipines said
    We think it is ATIENZA (or from the family of ATIENZA). When I could not find that by web search she said “try Try atiensa with an s”. Since no one has won yet and maybe you have more time to search, am giving this a shot.

  2. Well, it’s 2 years later and I just ate one of these here in Trinidad! I’m guessing the name is penny piece but this seems larger and browner than pics I’ve found online

  3. Definitely penny piece.I have one in my backyard.The Agoutis love it.Grande Rivière Trinidad.

Comments are closed.