This week I received an unexpected package from one of my aunts who live in Puerto Rico. My family in PR knows how much I love the fruits and vegetables from the island and they try to periodically send me care packages with little edible mementos. I was in high heaven, sinking my teeth into a jobo grown on a tree in Tia Estrella's backyard. It's a fruit that seems to be a cross between a mango and an apple. In English, they're called ambarella and they grow only in warm tropical places. The skin peels like a mango and the flesh is somewhat crisp like an apple. The seed is like a prickly cactus. The flesh is sweet, almost honey-like and there are thick fibers that run throughout the fruit. Tia Estrella sent me about 10 jobos and I've been eating one a day, sad that after 10 days there won't be any more until this time next year.
My uncle, Tio Yoyo, sent me a care package a couple of months ago with quenepas. This is a very addicting wonderful fruit that again only grows in high tropical areas. It goes by different names in different countries, mamoncillos, gineps, mamones, Spanish limes. The outer shell is hard, like a muscadine. And the flesh is pink, soft and fuzzy and acidic. There is a large round seed in the middle. When Kevin and I were in Costa Rica for our honeymoon many years ago, I discovered that they grow there as well. Every single picture from our honeymoon has me with a brown paper bag filled with the fruit and my hand to my mouth, sucking on the sweet soft quenepa flesh. Life cannot get better than this.
I also receive packages with fresh parcha, aka passion fruit. My sweet aunt Tia Ada sent me a few this summer and I was able to enjoy fresh passion fruit juice, just like my mom taught me to make. There's an involved, careful process of removing the seeds so it won't taint the flavor of the fruit. Oh, but the juice is nothing like what you buy at the store. Tart but sweet and orange-yellow in color.
Then there's tamarindos. My mom sends me these from Florida. This fruit is like a big brown bean pod. The flesh is also brown and soft, very tart, and the seeds are hard and dark brown. I make bottles and bottles of fresh tamarindo juice, keeping the brown shiny seeds for mosaic mirror frame I plan to make one day.
I'm so grateful for my family and how they spoil me with delicious natural flavors from fruit trees that God has so lovingly created. When I sink my teeth into a jobo, or a quenepa, or drink the pulp from a parcha or tamarindo, I can close my eyes and let the flavors roll around my mouth, my heart full of love and appreciation for a caring family and God's culinary artistry.
