There is nothing quite so much fun as discovering eatables you’ve never heard of before. It is kind of amazing how many fruits I’ve tried in six months!
Pawpaw, Evolved.
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Since I arrived in Tanzania I’ve tried (in no particular order):
Mfenesi (Jackfruit) - First ate at homestay, I needed to visit my Homestay mama’s duka to coat my hands with cooking oil so that the sticky juice doesn’t get everywhere. Later I learned that even Vaseline works and is nicer to clean off. The flavor is a bit like banana, mango and pineapple.
Nanasi (Pineapple) – Fresh pineapples have soft centers that you can eat. Did you know that in a tropical climate you can simply plant the top and it continues to grow, though I’m not sure it will survive the blight of the dry season here in the semi-arid zone.
Mabahora (Passion Fruit) – We grow these at our college ICT center. They’ve practically taken over in the past two years, six plants fully occupy huge trellises around three buildings and during the rainy season produce 5-15 sour passion fruits each day. Taking off the IT staffs’ success the college has now planted and constructed trellises for another sweet species from China all around the general offices.
Ndizi Kawaida (Bananas) – Delicious, huge. If you buy these at a duka (shop) they are typically picked green and forced to ripen leading to normal size bananas by American standards. If you know the right people at the soko (market) or grow your own with a source of water (ICT center) they’re almost the diameter of my arm.
Topetope & Stafeli (Custard Apple or Soursop) – These are weird fruits I’d never heard of. Coincidentally (according to Wikipedia) they share the same family as the endemic pawpaw fruits of Ohio (not Papayas) that you find near rivers. The general moppy texture and seeds are similar but the flavors and overall designs of the African species are more delicate. Stafeli has pinchy nubs like spines and has seeds scattered throughout. The topetope has a seed in every pod coated with delicious and more evenly textured fruit.
Stafeli on a tree
Ndizi Sukari (Sugar Bananas) – Short, stout and sweet. These come from the south in Mbeya and generally don’t make it to the market here. I enjoyed them during training and during my conference to the south where you could get a bunch of 20 plump bananas for 50c. We have a plant at ICT but before I arrived it fruited and as Banana plants dump their progeny all at once and die there was none for me. I have to wait another 6-8 mo for a new hand to grow.
Papai (Papaya) – If eaten too early they taste sugarless and too late they taste like rot but if you get lucky they can be pretty good. They’re currently out of season and I kind of miss their juicy tang. The seeds are edible and reminiscent of capers. Recently I heard someone compare Microsoft Vista to a papaya, I think that is pretty fair. It looks delicious but usually isn’t.
Mapera (Guava) – Bought twenty of these on a visit to volunteers in a distant village in our region–for a cent each. Sweet but so far elusive, the seeds are very hard and probably would make good juice if I could get bigger ones.
Para ya Telatela (Prickly Pear or Pitaya) – Huge “bush” of cacti is growing outside my house. Still not sure how it came to my town all the way from Central-America, maybe the Germans brought it. But then how did the Germans get it? Who knows.
Para (Asian Pear) – Asian pears are like crisp apples. So many crisp sorts of American apples are not available so this is good news.
Maembe (Mango) – There are at least three different sorts, each of a different size, texture and flavor. I like the big, juicy ones and the small kali (peppery) sorts. The season for these huge tree’s fruit has now come to an abrupt end but they are amazingly sweet.
Parachichi (Avocado) – In TZ the two varieties of avocado that are available resemble fruits more than vegetables because they are sugary and less savory than the Hass avocados of California. They make great juice. When mixed with sour passion fruit juice similar to fresh guava nectar is created. When mixed with bananas you get a smooth slurry. They’re pretty useless in other typical avocado dishes though, as far as my experimenting has gone.
Machungwa (Oranges) – For most of the year these are a discolored disappointment but recently they have been at least comparable to Florida and California oranges. They’re still green, even when ripe which takes some getting used to.
Machenza (Tangarines) – Significantly better than Oranges, bigger than American tangarines and despite, again, being discolored, effuse fragrant orangey-goodness everywhere when you peal them. I think the greenness of TZ orange-things is related to them probably being grown by seed instead by cutting.
Tikitiki Magi (Watermelon) – If these are eaten too early in the season the melons are often underdeveloped, white and flower-flavored. Later I anticipate more typical flavor.
Matunda Damu (Blood Fruit) – There are about six different things Tanzanians refer to when they say bloodfruit. I found one sort in Mbeya which had an apricot textured exterior once pealed with a core of hundreds of very berry-like seeds. My friend said she had eaten these in Florida so I wonder if they are not persimmons or kumquats.
Plums: Not bad, nothing special here, simple small plums.
Peaches: Again, nothing special, a bit crisp.
Zambarau plum – I have heard rumors of a different sort but the kind I tried was terrible and desiccates your mouth as you suck on the oblong seed.
Madanzi (Bitter orange/Grapefruit) – Happily stumbled upon this in the Mbeya soko, quite refreshing white grapefruit.
Zabibu (grapes) – Concorde grapes are as good here as anywhere.
Makokomanga (Pomegranate) – The bush outside a fellow volunteer’s house was not really as flavorful as the commercially cultivated varieties available in the US.
Sherisheri (Breadfruit or relative) – It is a starch when you boil it like cassava, potatoes or cooking bananas, a bit sweet with a durian-like texture when uncooked.
Unripe dates – terribly bitter. Street vendor tricked me into trying one. Evil–they looked yummy.
Limes and Lemons – These are conflated. “lemons†are generally more like American limes and “limes†are little spherical things. Occasionally, deformed, large European-style lemons are available.
Ukwaju (Tamarind) : Mildly interesting tangy flavor but not much to the fruit itself.
Maembe Gongo (Gongo Mango): Mango-looking fruit which is actually fairly different
Gogo People’s Mango: many seeded, sweet fruit that barely resembles a mango. This one grows in my back yard.
Healthy Papaya tree
Haven’t yet tried here:
African dried dates
Figs
African Rhubarb (for all I know this was is just like the US but I only passed it in the Mbeya market)
Starfruit (An eclectic gardener had one of these plants but no fruits yet, suspect it is rare and not really yet introduced.)
Notable fruits not in TZ as far as I have seen:
Nectarines – My favorite fruit. I miss it.
Cranberries – The range of these is up north of Washington DC across the globe, must require frost.
Strawberries
Apricots
Kiwi
Big Plums
Durian
Berries:
Blackberry-like: This was good, wish I could plant it nearer to my house.
Mgulawe: Sugercane, pears and honey flavor but not much meat.
I just returned back to my site yesterday and it seems that the dry season has arrived in my district. I think this means that perhaps the cornucopia of fruit will probably begin to trickle. Alas.
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This was really interesting, thank you!
There is a fruit which I think is available only in Zanzibar. The swahili name is “Matufa”. I am trying to find the English name of this fruit and month of the year when it available.
Can you help?
As I mentioned in my Zanzibar post I had Matofah (or more properly “tofaa” singular, “matofaa” plural). It is shaped and colored like a waxed, small but well chiseled red apple. Inside the texture is soft like a plum, bright white, the “skin” is very thin, you can even rub off the color. I can’t seem to seem to find its scientific name. It makes it difficult because most (bad) dictionaries online translate Matofaa as Apple. This might be an accurate translation in Kenya but not in Tanzania.