The “first timer” fruits

I remember when I first tried papaya during the first trip to New York with Asta. It was gluey, mushy without much of distinctive taste and I was not eager to try it again. Maybe it was due to sitting too long on the road and in the warehouses. However, I tried papaya again in the Gambia which was sooo tasty, sweet and firm. In addition to tasty papaya, bananas and countless number of mangoes I also got to try these “first timers”.

First one is a cashew fruit (kasuwoo – in Mandinka), which is juicy and sweet but very acidic. Two varieties of cashwew grow here – red and yellow (do not know actual names for the varieties). The red one has a more distinctive taste and I prefer it better.  

Cashew fruit.

The next “first timer” was a sweet sop (sunkung – in Mandinka). It looks like a balding hedge hog with only few spikes remaining. The eatable part of the fruit is juicy and squashy white flesh inside which is very sweet too. We have a few sweet sop trees in my family’s compound and I can’t wait for fruits to ripe.

Sweet sop.

The last “first timer” was kabaa (in Mandinka, I do not know the English nor scientific name for it) which looked to me like a human brain when I first opened it. It is a wild fruit that grows on a wine like tree. It is so sour that most of Gambians’ eat it with several table spoons of sugar added to it. After eating few of them in the row (note - without sugar) my mouth was hurting so I didn’t really develop a taste for this strangely looking fruit:)

Kabaa.