Sunday, June 26, 2011

Island Fruits

St Martin is not known for its agriculture. The focus is solely on tourism; I've heard that since water is so expensive, local farming has died out almost completely. There is one farm that seems commercial, but supermarket shelves are full of fruits and vegetables from anywhere and everywhere.... but here.

Locals, however, do have trees that bear fruit. PeeWee sometimes comes home with fruits given to him by his patients - most of the times huge green bananas or starfruit. This week, however, he brought two pieces of fruit that I had never ever laid eyes on before. One rotted so fast that I did not have time to take a picture or even eat. It looked like a kiwi - same color skin, though no fuzz, and about the same size, although it had a definitely sweeter smell to it. The other fruit was this:

What the heck is this?

To give you a sense of proportion, a 20-oz bottle of water was placed next to it.

The skin is slightly soft, gives in to gentle prodding and the prickly looking parts are not really prickly.

Not sure if I am brave enough to cut this open!

Update: Did cut it open, its inside looked vaguely like a pale pineapple with big black seeds. Not brave enough to eat it though since a small mold was looking quite threatening on one side...

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