The Sugar Apple

Photo Source: Google Images

If you read my post about yesterday's visit to the Farmer's Market, you know I bought a couple of fruits I'd not tried before.  I was shocked to find my Sugar Apple, which was hard yesterday, was soft today and obviously ready to eat.  I tried to cut it, but frankly it was easier to pull it apart with my fingers.  The outside is kind of leathery feeling and did not slice easily.  It was, as described by the farmers, easiest to scoop out the insides and suck the seeds.  There is no obvious way to get to the fruit otherwise.  I used my fingers and plucked the seeds out one by one and then gently scraped the inside with a spoon.  That garnered less than a teaspoon of pulp (the scraping).  I took a couple of cell phone photos (I left my camera in the car and don't want to fight the mosquitoes to go get it right now).  You can see that there are a lot of black seeds with a thin coating of fruit.  The first bite tasted sweet, yet had an underlying starchy taste.  The texture is almost gelatinous.  I ate about 1/4 of the content and then went to Google the fruit to see what I could find out about it. 

I found this link from what looks to be a Purdue web site which gave a great amount of background on the fruit.  If you find one - and try it - don't swallow the seeds.  They are apparently toxic.  It's a lot of work for just a little bit of fruit.  However, it tasted sweeter and sweeter as I continued popping those seeds in and sucking off the pulp.  I am unsure whether or not I'll buy one again...but I'd LOVE to see this fruit as the Iron Chef America secret ingredient :-)