Mystery Fruit of San Pedro, Belize: Custard Apple or Cherimoya

The fruit season in Belize is starting up.  Mamey is here.  Green mangos are just arriving, ripe ones should be here in a month or two and yesterday I found a strange fruit that I’ve never tried.  The custard apple.  Also called cherimoya or even the ice cream fruit.  Hmmmm…those names sound promising.

Hey, Mark Twain even called the custard apple “the most delicious fruit known to men”.  His books weren’t half bad, maybe he knows something about fruit.  Let’s give it a try.

(I also love the name of this fruit.  I would love to hear more husbands calling their wives “my little custard apple”…so much better than pumpkin or honey.)

According to Wikipedia, this fruit grows on an evergreen-like shrub and is in the sour sop family (a popular ice cream fruit flavor in Belize).  It is best when eaten green (I wish I had known that when chosing but red seemed so much more appealing to me).  It is also best when eaten chilled.  Enough said…my not so attractive looking custard apple went straight into the refrigerator.

Also good to know…the large black shiny seeds are poisonous when crushed.  The lady at the fruit stand did not fill me in on that important fact.

Here it is cold and split.  It does look like sherbert.

It is soft and smooth, velvety and sweet.  This fruit is delish.  Just eat it with a spoon.   Congratulations Custard Apple!  You have moved into the SanPedroScoop Top Five fruits in the world.

In case you wanted to see the full list…

1.  Avocado (available in Belize in the summer, sporadically during the rest of the year if brought from Mexico)
2. Red Cherries (not available in Belize)
3. Mango (available widely all summer long)
4.  Raspberry (rarely rarely imported to Belize)
5. Custard Apple

What have I missed?

For all the fruits that I tried and reviewed in the past, check out these blog posts:  Dragon Fruit, Passion Fruit, Craboo & Seagrapes