The guanábana revisited

[labradors]

Quite a while back, I mentioned a fruit, shaped like a green, spiky football, called guanábana.

A friend of mine has a small guanábana tree in his backyard, and he sent me an email, today, saying his helper had picked one that I could have, and was on the way over with it.

The guanábana is a very messy, sticky fruit to eat, with lots of "pockets" that each have a seed. Having tried just eating it directly, I can definitely say that, by far, the easiest (and most popular) way to enjoy a guanábana is to make juice from it.

When I first searched the web about these, more than four years ago, I found a few pictures and descriptions, but I just found an interesting, newer web page that not only shows more-detailed pictures, but also shows and describes the juice-making process.

Here, then, is a web page about someone's encounter with guanábana juice while in Ecuador. What it shows and describes is what I did, tonight, after receiving the guanábana. YUM!

[Cubangirl]

Now I am really confused. In Cuba we had anones and guanabanas. I loved anones, my favorite fruit of all, but did not particularly care for guanabanas. However, the picture and description you gave look like the anones I used to have. I have not had one in many years. They are now available in Miami, but I've never been there while in season and I can't get them sent to me in CA. I am going to check with my parents to see if the fruits are related or if this is case of different names given in different countries. I ate them cold, the same way one would eat an old fashioned watermelon with seeds.

[labradors]

The guanábana (as seen in the link I posted above) is called "soursop" in English.

The anón, on the other hand, is called "sweetsop," "custard apple" or "sugar apple" in English:



Given their respective names, I would guess that anones are sweeter than guanábanas and, for that reason, probably more people would prefer anones, but I've never seen nor tasted one to know for myself.

[Lorraine]

That's one big fruit, Labs!

[Mare749]

Now that's a fascinating fruit, but looks so time intensive to work with. Would it be possible to use a food mill instead of doing it by hand? Can you compare the juice to anything we might know in the U.S.?

[Gourmet_Mom]

That is interesting. I'm with Maryann....is there something to compare here?

[DFen911]

It looks like a bunch of grapes that grew too close to a nuclear power plant

[Cubangirl]

I don't think a food mill would work. Anon is wonderful, the sweet pulp is worth the trouble of spitting out the seeds. I have never seen anything comparable in the US. If you want to see a variety of fruits not usually seen here go to the cubanfoodmarket.com website. They mail fruit but not allowed in CA so it does not help me. Mamey is another wonderful fruit.

[labradors]

Maryann and Daphne, I can't really compare it to anything else. Some web sites say the flavour somewhat resembles that of strawberries, but I don't get that when I taste it.

Some things really do taste like others. For example, rambutans (similar to lychees) taste a lot like grapes. Guanábana, though, seem unique, to me.

[cjs]

it's umami...dum de dum dum...