Sleepless Travels Reloaded

I saw this weird fruit at Woolworths today. It was 98c each (pricey!) but I couldn’t resist trying it out.
It looks like a plum tomato and has a stalk similar to the stalks found on chillies. I was wondering if it was like a plum.

When I got back I looked it up on the wiki as per usual. Tamarillos aka tree tomato, are in the same family as tomatoes however they are in a different genus. They are native to the Andes of Peru, Chile, Ecuador and Bolivia and are cultivated in quite a number of countries including Australia and are grown as a commercial crop for international export in New Zealand and Portugal.

The NZ Tamarillo Growers Association’s official tamarillo website markets it as “the lost food of the Incas” which is really quite romantic I thought. (The Tamarillos at Woolies weren’t specially marketed or anything though…wonder if they’ll be able to sell them all).

Oooo. NZ seems to be growing lots of strange fruit including kiwiberries. Interesting.

Anyway I very happily trotted back home with my lovely little tamarillo in my hands. I sliced it open…and had a bite.

…interesting flavour. But it was BITTER! What?!

The websites didn’t mention bitterness? Hmm. I tried just the flesh alone and it wasn’t bitter…Ah. Make sure you don’t eat the skin of a tamarillo……

I had half of it just plain. It had a very interesting flavour. Similar to a tomato - tangy. But it had a very tasty, savoury flavour to it too. Very unusual flavour. The seeds were harder than normal tomatoes but still edible. It was reminiscent of pomegranates.

I halved my remaining half of tamarillo flesh. I sugared one half and with the other I drizzled some good olive oil over it, gave it a good twist of freshly ground black pepper and salt.

The savoury tamarillo was pretty nice. It would go great in a salad. It’s just so tasty and full-bodied. Grilled tamarillo? Mmmm…I tried it with fresh grated parmesean cheese too. While it rounded out the flavour and took the edge off the sourness, I felt it also masked the unique flavour of the tamarillos.

I had the sugared tamarillo for “dessert”. And it was niiiiice. Very refreshing. The websites recommend chilled sugared tamarillo for breakfast. In Colombia, fresh tamarillos are frequently blended together with water and sugar to create a beverage.

Mmm.
Tamarillo.
Eeet eeet!