Friday, October 19, 2012

Strawberry Tree....by Jessica

I came across two fruit trees today that I have never seen before.

One was a Arbutus Strawberry Tree.  The fruit is small and spiky, starts out yellow and gets red as it ripens.  It tasted sweet, kind of tart and was very seedy.

I read up on the fruit and learned some interesting things: unripe it can cause nausea, on the other hand it can ferment on the branch and cause mild intoxication.  

I didn't have either of those issues, so I'm assuming I ate them when they were juuust right.

I came across a very interesting recipe for this fruit and I'm hoping that I can convince the Strawberry Tree homeowner to let me pick some to try.

Strawberry Tree Fruit Liqueur
1 kg strawberry tree fruit
1 litre alcohol
250 ml water
0.5 kg to 1 kg sugar
(It goes without saying that I'll ask Zack to do the conversions for me)
Wash fruit and place in large glass jar.  Dissolve sugar in hot water to make a sugar syrup.  Pour alcohol and cold sugar syrup over fruit in jar.  Leave to macerate for 6 months.  Filter and bottle.  


The other fruit was shaped like a squatty small apple, slightly bumpy with darker brown speckles on it.  I tried googling that description and got images for all sorts of weird fruit, but not the one I saw.  I'll take a picture of it soon and post it so someone can tell me what it is unless you know from my awesome description.  It tasted sweet but very mealy - it reminded me of the flavor and texture of a persimmon...but when I ate it kumquat came to my mind immediately too for some reason.

Okay.  I know I'm weird and I'll stop with the fruit talk now.

The funny part of this story was I was telling Zack about these fruit and what they tasted like, etc.  and he said "You mean, you just picked the fruit and ate it and you don't even know what it is?  What if it's poisonous?  Ugh?!!  And I just kissed you." (that's exactly what he said, I was going to not put that last sentence but well, there you go).  

And I did.  I just picked the fruit and ate it.  Well, I spit out the bumpy squatty fruit because it was so mealy, but I did eat that strawberry tree fruit.  

I got to thinking that might be kind of strange.  Thoughts?

*UPDATE*
{just back from taking the kids to school and took a picture of the squatty fruit.  Ian saw it and said "Oh yeah, that's a pom-berry" with much confidence.  It's not a pom-berry.}



5 comments:

Amber Paz said...

Yes crazy girl. You could of gotten diarrheas. Your to brave with your fruits

Anonymous said...

I gotta admit the whole time I'm reading this I'm thinking exactly what Zac said, minus the kiss of course, you ate without knowing? Glad it was safe. Note to Anya and Ian: -don't do what she did -lol! Your recipe sounds yummy -berrycello maybe? ;-)
-m-

Juliana said...

This made me laugh, the other day walking out in service I saw a bunch of acorns and I wondered what they tasted like. So I stomped on one with my boots and nibbled on the innards. So so so incredibly bitter! I guess that's why we don't eat acorns :)

Jessica said...

Amber, I'm still not as crazy as you {you microwave cookie maker you}. M - berrycello, yum! :) And yes, I just blew off all the little rubbish and flicked away the bugs and ATE them, ha ha. Juli - I've tried acorns too!!!! I've wondered if they need to be roasted or something.

Mirjam said...

Jessica, that recipe goes for most fruits: replace the strawberry tree fruit for plums, dried apricots, raisins etc...Come to think of it, am even thinking how persimmons would be this way.
"Boozed' fruit like this is great over ice btw.
I had never seen strawberry tree fruit and one day out in FS we walked by one and someone said that they were delicious... Not sure about delicious but the are good..