When friends ask what I like about living in Costa Rica, inevitably my answer includes FOOD. And when I say “food,” I’m talking about the variety of fresh fruits and vegetables available here. Our food discoveries are made at the farmers’ markets or through neighbors wanting us to try something “new.”
This week our neighbor, Jaimie, stopped us as we were driving up the road and handed us 2 grapefruit-sized, olive-green fruits and said they were “Columbian Sapotes.” When we got to the house, I immediately looked to see if this was listed on our “Tropical Fruits of Costa Rica” sheet. It wasn’t. There was a Mamey Sapote, but nothing with the word “Columbia.” Oh well, it looked interesting, and safe. We’d give it a try. I made a number of slices into the velvety outer skin and proceeded to open the fruit into sections. Inside the tough green skin was bright red-orange pulp with a mango consistency. So far, so good. But, the big test was still to come. Would Gordie eat it? Hmm. Yes, turns out that Gordie not only tried it, he liked it – quite a bit. Said it tasted better than mango! Quite an endorsement, so I thought I would find out more about this tropical fruit.
Searching online for information on the Columbian sapote or zapote, I discovered there are actually quite a few fruits called “sapote.” In fact, the term is commonly applied to any number of soft, sweet fruits, and it seems like every country has their own version. In El Salvador, for example, there is the zapote grande; in Panama the mamey de la tierra; in Jamaica, it is marmalade fruit or marmalade plum; in Nicaragua, it may be called guaicume; and in Mexico, chachaas or chachalhaas or tezonzapote.
We liked the taste of our Columbian sapote so much that we have planted 3 of the 5 seeds. First we soaked the five furry husks in water; then, a couple of days later, we watched in amazement as the husk split open to reveal what looked like a “brain.” Fingers crossed we may have our own trees one of these days. The “Tontorican Sapote.”
