Cameron calls the fruit guy on the corner of Spring and Sixth Avenue our porno fruit guy. He has signs that have adjectives on them like “extra big size cherries”, “beautiful nectarines”, “sweet beautiful pineapple” and my favorite, “all kind sweet apple”.
I’ve bought cherries and bananas from him before. Today I walked by and saw these green little things. I asked him what they were and he told me they were quenepas and that they are “sweet and sawah.” (I love this guy!) This Puerto Rican girl sitting on a stoop came up to tell me they are from Puerto Rico and showed me how to eat them: you take a small bite to crack the leathery green skin, suck the juice, peel off completely and pop the plum in your mouth. You basically suck it until it’s dry. They are a little sweet and a little tart at the same time. After a few of them, you get a cotton-feel in your mouth because of the fuzzy texture of the fruit’s flesh.
They’re known in the Caribbean as mamoncillo, or mamon, which is also an obscene word. (You’re going to have to email me to find out what it means.) This Jamaican girl from work calls them ginep. She said they grow all-year round in Jamaica although this is the first time I’ve seen them in New York City. According to Caribbean folk wisdom, girls learn the art of kissing by eating the sweet flesh of this fruit. (More than just kissing, I bet.) In Ecuador, my friend Vanessa told me, you eat them with salt.
I’ve saved some of the seeds to dry them and I’ll be roasting them over the weekend. Tune in next week for the results!
Update:
So I put the dried seeds on a baking sheet and roasted them while I read The Times on Sunday morning. I remembered to take them out as soon as my mother asked about the funny smell in the kitchen. Thankfully, I didn’t burn them completely. When they were cool enough to handle, I cracked a few using a nutcracker. The quenepa seed meat was surprisingly tender, just like chestnuts. They were a pretty good snack considering they were spat out by co-workers. Now I feel like I have to tell the fruit guy that the little fruits make good tender, nuts.
Comments
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Oo, pero kasing laki lang ng holen mo.
Very interesting report. I never dreamed the seeds contents were edible.
I was searching online to try and find them (for purchasing) and ended up here. It’s a childhood treat for me. I was born in Jamaica and later moved to Florida. Both (country/state) had guinep, but a year ago I moved to the Nordic country of Sweden, and as you can imagine I’m all lucked out when it comes to picking them up conveniently at the grocery store.
Being Jamaican not even I knew about that story of the girls learning the ‘art’ of kissing with the fruit. That’s certainly not what I was using them for. This and tamarind (which I’ve managed to find here, although not packaged in the best of ways) are my all time favorites. Guavas are great too… and jack fruit, breadfruit, tropical almonds, mangoes, June plum, sour and sweet sop, sugar cane, star apple, naseberry, maple apple, ackee … I miss Jamaica! (I listed so many so that you could perhaps check them out yourself. The seed of the Jack fruit are excellent when boiled).
Yummy! Quenepas :) They are very popular in Puerto Rico on the street lights. They are available on summers and sometimes in early autumn. I had never seen anyone roast them or eat the seed. Gosh, mamones sure is a very ugly word.
I’m from The Bahamas and I love guineps! Some of us eat the seed too, after biting off the casing. I was checking the internet to see whether anyone ever tried roasting them, and there you were. Thanks. I’ll try and probably use them as a salad extra.
Wow am from Jamaica myself and I now lived in Dallas Texas and I try to find a lot of these fruit as well and its really hard to find them so I only get them when I go back home on Vacation but its really True that Jamaican is all over the world even in Nordic Sweden all the way From Flordia one love and Big up Jamaican all over the world
I’m from Panama RP (not Panama City, FL). I remember these fruits growing up as a kid in Flatbush, Brooklyn. Every summer the grocer’s would have them available for sale. It was a summer treat that my mom gave to the kids to eat while walking up and down Flatbush Ave. I only new them as mamones. Now i’m in California and can’t find them anywhere. Thanks for the trip down memory lane.
I grew up in Jamaica (60 years ago) and I love guineps but can’t find good ones here in Montreal, Canada. As children, we always managed to get guinep stains all over our clothes and the stains were impossible to remove – similar to the stains left by choke cherries that one finds growing wild here in Eastern Canada.
I’m interested in the roasting of the seeds and wonder whether they are really safe to eat. There are so many seeds that have toxic components in them that I think you should try and find out before eating too many!