My Weird Fruit Obsession

The amazing breadfruit!

Ever since I can remember, fruits have been a "passion" of mine. What does that even mean? It's hard to explain, I guess. I've just always found it so incredibly fascinating, how many varieties there are of fruits, and even more fascinating just how they grow, develop and even in some cases, how they change from one stage to another. Take the bread fruit, for instance - a fruit I only recently got to know, after moving to Puerto Rico. It's a large, green fruit, that looks a bit like a jackfruit. When it's unripe, you can really use it like you use potatoes; for mash, fries, baked.... anything really. The first few times I tried it, I really couldn't even tell the difference between it and actual potatoes, although the flavor is a little different. But to me, that could just have been some spices that were added.

And then, when the fruit matures and ripens, it completely changes. It gets soft and literally tastes like vanilla pudding. Isn't it amazing? And that's just one of the many fruits I've known for many years, or that I have learned about after moving here.

Almost all fruits have remarkable antioxidants, can lower blood sugar and cholesterol and are just plain great for you. Mangoes! A fruit I, also until recently, thought there was really just type of, is another amazing one. No! There are many different varieties. One of the most popular here in Puerto Rico, is called Mango Piña. First of all, it's huge, compared to most mangoes I have ever encountered. And it also tastes like you have mixed pineapple with mango. It's truly an amazing fruit that I jump on, as soon as I encounter it. Someday, when all of our fruit trees have decided to be mature enough to fruit, I plan to do an actual mango "tasting" with as many varieties as I can. It will be amazing, weird, nerdy and fabulous all at once!!

My fruit obsession is also why I have often felt, despite people maybe being of modest means or even poor - that to me, they were "rich", when they had a bunch of fruit trees in their either small or large garden. Here in Puerto Rico, I often drive through the mountains and what is considered poor areas - but the view they have!! And then there's all the fruit trees they also often have around. To me, that is rich! I understand that no amount of fruit can help if you're financially set back, but maybe you understand what I mean...

The entire process of planting something and watching it grow and grow until it flowers and sets fruit is something that has amazed me ever since childhood. Of course it can be quite the waiting, as most fruits take at least 5 to 8 years from seed and until they start bearing "gifts". And many take even longer. And then there's how some just set fruit on their own with no "help". Others need more of the same plants around. Others, again, need to have both male and female plants nearby to produce fruit, and others again need very specific pollinators. Cacao, for instance, despite the pretty large pods it produces, when setting fruit, has tiny flowers that are pollinated by fruit flies. The chayote - one of those fruits that's botanically a fruit but gets used as a vegetable, gets pollinated at night by a very specific moth. If you don't find all this fascinating, you clearly aren't as obsessed with fruits as I am. But either way, fruits are good for us, and probably the most exciting thing for me at the moment, is how I have planted a huge number of fruits on our land that I still have never tried before. So, it will be such a treat for me, when they (IF they....) bear fruit sometime in the coming years. That is definitely the biggest motivation for me, besides just growing everything, I can get my hands on generally, of course.