Strange, tasty fruit (黄晶果) from a Bukit Timah garden

*I am correcting this blog post following feedback from my father-in-law’s friend. Thanks for sharing, uncle!

My father-in-law brought home a few of these bright yellow specimens a couple of days ago. They were gifts from a friend – he had lovingly cultivated an abiu tree for a many years and it was harvest time.

I didn’t manage to see the tree or take pictures of the fruit (that’s more Alvin’s thing) but I could not get the unique taste, smell and texture of the fruit out of my mind. The pictures here have been taken from other websites and I hope I have done them justice by linking them to their owner sites.

I would describe this golden fruit as a pudding pod. You halve it and scoop out the jelly-like, milky flesh with a spoon. There are only one to four long, black seeds in each fruit, each covered in a slimy membrane.

My mum-in-law believes that this fruit is not available for sale anywhere because it is highly perishable. It has to be consumed within a few short days after harvesting and turns brown within seconds of cutting it open.

Finally, with accurate information, I managed to find this elusive fruit on Wikipedia. Check it out. It is widely grown in parts of South America, southern parts of China and Taiwan, it seems, and belongs to the Sapotaceae family.

Yesterday, I tried looking up information about it on Google but came up with nothing until I tried its alternative Chinese name: 黄金果。

Another similar-looking fruit is grown mainly for ornamental purposes and does not seem to be fit for eating. The Solanum mammosum is of a different species altogether it seems!

Solanum mammosum is also known as Nipplefruit, Titty Fruit, Cow’s Udder, or “Apple of Sodom”. The Chinese name is 五指茄。

Technorati Tags: golden yellow fruit, Pouteria Caimito, abiu, Bukit Timah, garden, Nipplefruit, Apple of Sodom, Cow’s Udder, 黃金果, 黄晶果