A New Fruit For You: Quenepas aka Mamoncillos aka Ackee aka Gineps aka Kenep aka Spanish Limes aka Gineppes

I always end up in this sort of conversation come August in Miami at a farmer's market:

Me: "Ooooh, quenepas!" ::::grab a cluster of the small, ovoid, green fruit::::

Someone standing nearby, if Haitian: "Ah, we call those kenep."

Someone else standing by, if from a different part of the Caribbean: "We call it ackee."

Someone not from the Caribbean or Latin America: "What is that?"

Me, "I'm not sure what 'Americans' call it." I go through the names.

"Is it good," the uninitiated asks, looking curiously at the weird little fruit.

"Are you kidding me? I'll eat this whole package in one sitting! Loved these since I was a kid. And I only got good ones in August. Gotta have them now."

~~

Mamoncillos is what my dad called them. I learned to call them quenepas (sometimes seen spelled "kenepas") in the South Bronx, as that's what the Puerto Rican fruit merchants called them. Either way: MmmmMMmmmmm. One of my all-time fave "not seen often" fruits.

Here in Miami, vendors will sell them on street corners in narrow plastic bags. If you're down here, you've probably noticed that every August.

If you've never tried them, here's why they're good for dieters: You can't eat them fast.

To me, they were akin to the experience of eating pomegranates and mangoes as a kid: a special, seasonal, stain-threatening treat.

My Mami would take off my shirt (when I was pre-puberty, natch), sit me on a pile of newspapers, hand me the pomegranate (or bag of quenepas or a mango), and let me suck away and make as much of a mess as my enthrallment with the fruits required.

I never ate the crunchy litle seeds of the pomegranates--still don't. I'd suck each seed individually--one at a time--getting the ruby fruit off the miniscule center hardness.

Same with quenepas. Very little wonderful sweet-tart flesh surrounds the pit, but so worth the effort of sucking it off, sliding the teeth over the goodness, getting as much as you could of the pale-peach pulp.

All three stain pretty badly, especially pomegranates! Quenepas leave a brown stain. Hence the precautions.

Wednesday, I had my quenepas when I got the late munchies. One little green beauty at a time. That amazingly satisfying brittleness that gives at the bite, so you can peel it off and get to work on the pulpy pit. It takes a while to get through a cluster this way. For bingers like me, any very slow-eating food, especially one that is so flavorful and satisfying to the mouth--you really gotta work it with tongue and lips and teeth--is a good thing.

Lets the binge urge pass a bit. Or altogether. :)

If you never tried these--no matter what you wanna call th em--be adventurous. If they have a lovely sweetness with the tartness, they're ripe. If they're just tart, they're not ripe: spit it out and search the cluster for a plump, riper one.

Try some this month. Before they're all gone till next year. :(

~~~