Ever wonder what those exotic, weird-looking fruits and
vegetables you sometimes pass in the produce aisle taste like?
Today I decided
to find out, when I picked up an aptly-named Ugli fruit and a couple of chayote
squash, which look like mummified little granny doll faces.
“Tastes like
honeyed tangerine and tart grapefruit,” the little sign at Hannaford’s promised
of the Ugli fruit, perhaps the most unsightly specimen of produce I have ever
seen. The Jamaican import has a rough, wrinkly, misshapen rind that looks way
too loose for whatever fruit might be inside.
The chayote isn’t
much prettier. Originally from Mexico,
chayotes look a little like large granny smith apples, but with a
whoops-lost-my-dentures crease in the middle of them. These days, they’re most
often imported from Veracruz and Costa Rica, which is where mine came from, and
they’re used in Hispanic, Creole, Indian and Asian cuisines.
Interestingly, a
rumor in Australia that chayotes were being used instead of apples in McDonald’s
apple pies led to the fast food giant publicly emphasizing that real apples
were going into its pastries, according to Wikipedia. Also, chayotes are
purported to have cell-regenerative properties and some people believe that the
people in San Bernardo, Colombia,
who ate lots of it, became mummified from their consumption. (I wonder if they
looked anything like what they ate…)
Anyway, I decided
to sauté the chayotes with garlic, olive oil, salt, pepper and a little red
wine vinegar and serve them as a side dish with a Weight Watcher recipe,
Spanish chick pea, tomato and kale stew (I threw in a little vegetarian sausage
for protein) and serve the Ugli fruit with greens as a salad.
Results? The
Weight Watcher recipe was so-so, the chayote squash was bland (but firm; like a
slightly nutty zucchini, with promise for another recipe) and the Ugli fruit
was pretty darn good, both tasted separately and mixed with greens and a
vinaigrette.
Now I’m thinking
it would be fun to have an Ugly Food party where everybody brought a dish made
with the ugliest produce they could find.
Anybody game?
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