Fruit of the Week:

Mountain Apple

We stumbled across this fruit at the Hilo Farmer's Market, and were intrigued. Tamarah, by now used to pronouncing most things in Hawaii with all vowels clearly pronounced (as that is how Hawaiian words work,) charmingly called the Mountain Apple a Mo-oohn-ta-in Apple. They're relatively small (about the size of a plum) and the texture is somewhere in between an apple and a pear. Sanji informed us that the ones we purchased were of the Thai variety, and that the Hawaiian ones aren't as good. They taste light, not too sweet, with most flavor seeming to exist in the skin, which is semi-bitter. Anyways, I (Catherine) am a big fan. I think that they're delightfully light, fluffy, and crisp, and that the taste is subtle but inviting. Rachel was surprised at how much they actually tasted like an apple, she expected them to be much sweeter. She thinks they were more watery than she would have liked, and lacked flavor. Tamarah is not the biggest fan of them, she thinks that the

skin was like an apple and the inside was like a watery pear.