In Season/ Pepperfruit: Unripe & Ripe

It is the season of pepperfruit. It is. I find them on trays all around Warri – my  birth city, where I spend Easter. 

I’m a fan only of the red ones – sweet tooth and all. But back in Lagos, I spot the green ones and buy some to compare. What I find is what I share below. Spoiler – I still prefer the red ones after all the eating ‘research’.

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Unripe/ Green:

  • Flesh taut around the seeds
  • Texture of the skin – crunchy
  • Fragrance & Flavour – vegetal & spicy
  • Hot, lingering bitterness, menthol aftertaste

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Ripe/ Red:

  • Flesh loose around the seeds
  • Texture of the skin – soft, juicy
  • Fragrance & Flavour – sweet & spicy

From this, you can see that there are many transitions of the fruit as it ripens.

  1. The flesh softens
  2. It becomes juicy(ier)
  3. The scent/ fragrances develops into this warm, spicy scent that captures me
  4. It is sweeter

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And I think finally, I have enough – stashed away – to concoct a few things.

Though I’m a flesh person mostly, I’m saving the seeds. Again. For more exploration.

What do you think of pepperfruit? Have you tried it before? Do you do anything with it?

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6 Comments

  1. I’m a fan of the sweet fruit, I actually love the aroma. When I was a child, my mum made us eat the seeds when we had a sore throat or cough. They were very helpful, albeit spicy(peppery).

  2. Never tasted it the word pepper always put me off…. but you’ve got me curious…. I think I just might try it.

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