Yummy Brazilian Fruit - II

I have only two more days here in Brazil so I will try to blog (and photo blog) like crazy because I know that once I get home the motivation to share these stories and photos will quickly wane. I go back to the fruit, before I can (hopefully) move on to other subjects that may interest you.

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I was overjoyed when at a "sacolão" (literally, "big shopping bag" -- grocery store that sells fruits and vegetables, some by a flat rate by weight) in São Paulo I found this fruit from my childhood named cajamanga (a compound word that is the name of two other fruits, cajá and manga [mango]). It is common in Minas Gerais and not well known in other states, including São Paulo and Paraná where I grew up, but I spent five years of my childhood in a boarding academy located at a wonderful farm and this was one of the many fruits they had at their orchards.

I love it because it's tasty, sweet and also quite sour (I simply adore sour things). The seed in the middle is "thorny" as you can see below, so one has to be careful whey eating it.

The other fruit in this post are also available in other parts of the world, but the Brazilian varieties are very distinctive and delicious -- not that I know them in other countries (except for the figs in Turkey, via my sister-in-law), all I know is that where I've lived in the U.S. (MA and PA) one cannot really find the first two, only really expensive and ugly looking ones.

One of the things I eat with abandon in Brazil are figs: Juicy, plump, incredibly sweet figs. I am sure most of you have no idea what I'm talking about, so you won't even drool when you see this picture. I, on the other hand, am already drooling over this post, hungry although it's almost 1:30 am:

Persimmons (caquis in Brazil) are widely available here too and they are in season right now. There are two kinds:

These are hard/ crunchy (and you have to buy them at a stage when they can be eaten because they have a "bite" to them for a while before they're fully ripened). I just couldn't resist and bite into one of them before taking the picture: This variety is called caqui chocolate because of the brown "stripes" or spots in the pulp:

And these are soft and juicy, gooey at times:

Both incredibly sweet.

The avocados here are HUGE, these two that I photograph are actually "smallish," and, again, I just could not resist the milky and almost sweet flavor and spooned quite a bit of the pulp before taking the snapshot :-)

OK, tomorrow (today, actually, since it's 1:30 am by now, of the 24th, but I'll leave yesterday's date), I'll be back with more photos. Promise.