Strange fruit
Check out these odd fruits I spied in Chor Bazaar in Bombay.
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Singhada (Indian water chestnut): thanks, Nishant |
Singhada, which looks like alien spawn and is possibly the ugliest fruit I’ve ever seen, is heart-shaped, crunchy and white on the inside. It tastes a bit like peeled almond. You peel it by snapping off the stem, putting your thumbnail on the horseshoe-shaped ridge and pressing down. If you do it that way, it unzips easily.
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Sharifa / sitaphal (custard apple): thanks, Nishant |
I’ve never tried this artichoke grenade, but my nephew tells me the fruit is custard-like and eaten with a spoon. I’ve had sitaphal-flavored drinks, they’re delicious.
Here’s the metaphorical sense of the phrase ‘strange fruit.’
on Friday, July 28th, 2006, 4:53 am in Food, Travel › 
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sitaphal (or artichoke grenade ;) are amazing fruits.. manish since you’re in india you must eat some FOR ME ;)… puhleeeze.. those and lychees…and mangoosteens if they have them now….. ahh… the fruit from india is amazing… never tried the singhada…on the agenda of ‘things to try in india next time’ thanks for sharing!
‘Shareefa’ is delicious. I’m not a big ’singhada’ fan.
‘Singhada’ is often peeled, dried and then crushed. The flour (’singhade ka aata’) so obtained is used to make pooris and pakodis (usually for religious offerings).
Mmmmmm…. sitaphal. Smuggle one back into the U.S. for me :).
What on earth are mangosteens? Mini mangoes?
masale.wallah:
my entire taste palate changed 3 years ago while galavanting through kuala lumpur.. mangoostens are one of the most delectable fruits out there.. they are my numero uno fruit.. #2 lychees, and #3 mangoes…
singhada is pretty popular in delhi, u know. haven’t seen much of it in Mumbai tho
Singhadas are called pani singhadas in Bihar. By the way, singhadas in Bihar are what the rest of the nation calls samosas. They are tasty (both pani and ordinary singhadas)! And yes, do take full advantage of lychees and aam while you’re there. I’ve never tried mangosteens. I never knew they were available in India. Another fruit that I miss in the US is the guava, called amrood in Hindi (in Bihar, at least).
I was raised in bihar, so i have to agree with EnnaHesaruAni. He is right about Singhadas. Singhadas and Sitaphal are very popular in UP and Bihar. I have never found Singhadas and Sitaphal in US.
EnnaHesaruAni: You can find amrood in Indian store sometimes. It can never beat Allabhad or UP amroods.
I love amrood but I gotta put in a word for my homeboy the chiku.
Chiku is wonderful when it ripens naturally. I’ve seen it in some Indian stores in the US, but it’s hard like a stone. Aah! I how I miss Indian fruits…Do try amrood with red flesh inside. I’m not sure if they are available all over India, but they certainly are in the south.
the singhada is supposedly very good for you. it grows prodigously in slow moving water or lakes and is extremely rich in vitamins… it is also very cheap and my mum tells me it is what she would recommend for not well-off patients for a certain type of vitamin deficiency (i forget what). I didnt particularly enjoy it, but i do remember it as being very juicy and crunchy.
another indian delicacy that i absolutely love is the Ber. (pronounced Bay-r) . It has a texture like hmm… forelle pears. It is about an inch long and about a thumb wide. Green, but turning reddish brown when ripe. it has a distinctive fragrance - bring back a paper bag full of bay-r, now will you… o’ mum also told me it’s very good if you have constipation, or maybe diarrhea - one of those.
Last month, the heat of North India did not bother me. Why?
Because of mangoes, and lychees. I missed sharifas.
You also have to try jamun.
http://static.flickr.com/38/83825011_205451282b_m.jpg
http://toptropicals.com/pics/garden/05/10/0603.jpg
my nephew tells me the fruit is custard-like and eaten with a spoon
Looks like your nephew grew up in a city :)
Try it the Indian way, for maximum pleasure.
Man,
This is such an orientalist post. Imagine the shit we’d have given you if you were some gora writing about India. Next, you’ll be writing about cows and elephants in the street. There’s nothing exotic about a custard apple. Like the man said, just eat it.
DD
luckily my dad has the random green thumb, and has been planting exotic fruit trees over the years…we have the alfonso mango, sugar cane, passion fruit, 3 types of guava, jamun, chiku, gunda, pakistani mulberries, asian pears, and all other randomness growing in the jungle of a backyard called h-o-m-e…. nothing like eating a fresh sugar cane….we tried planting the sitafal (didn’t work) and the mangoosteen (i snuck some into the pais… :)), but it didn’t work… sigh… hence me planning trips to asia during the seasons of these fruits if possible… they are gustatory delights…and the simple things that make my world a better place to be in…
There’s nothing exotic about a custard apple.
Having just had my first, I gotta disagree: that’s one mutant fruit. Just for starters, what kind of fruit breaks apart at a mild squeeze? Then is full of large black seeds wrapped in a thin layer of banana custard?
When you try your first persimmon or Asian pear, there are other fruits to map the experience to. This thing looks like an artichoke on the outside, is like a pomegranate on the inside but has a consistency softer than any other fruit. If you told me this thing was imported from Mars I wouldn’t be surprised.
sitalfals are amazing things..and it is purely exotic… must agree with vij…
The definition of exotic depends on where you are from in India, I guess. A lot of people in Bihar love bel (बेल), which is probably quite exotic in other parts. Also, chakota (quite similar to grapefruit) in Karnataka must be exotic elsewhere. They don’t have jamun and lychee trees in south India, so it’s an exotic fruit there, but not in most parts of the north.
The sitafals (custard apple) in the photo seem to be from Mumbai’s Crawford Market. The fruit is sickly sweet when
fully ripe and rivals the chickoo (also known as ’sapota’ in parts of India) in sweetness. The ’singhada’ means ’samosa’ in West Bengal, and is called ‘paniphal’ there - it’s nothing but the fruit of the Water Hyacinth - it’s eaten raw when green, and also sold on the pavements after steaming (it’s rind becomes coal black), and its inside pulp is farinaceous like a potato. Mangosteen is locally known as ‘kokam’ and is found only on the Western coastal regions of Maharashtra and Karnataka. Its fruit gives a deliciously cooling drink called kokam sherbet, and its pulp is used to prepare kokam butter as an emollient for cracked feet. Bael fruit gives an orangeish pulp during the hot summers, and has a fruity smell - it is drunk as a cooling sherbet from the ripe fruit, and as a sour chutney from the unripe fruit. Mangoes are most treasured of all fruits in India and unless you have tasted this, your knowledge of India will remain incomplete. Litchees are very fragrant and sweet and the better tasting fruit are found in Calcutta, where once upon a time they used to be imported from China.
You also need to visit Singapore to sample exotic fruit not found elsewhere.
Close! The sitaphals were actually in Chor Bazaar.
I am presently translating a sixteenth century Sanskrit work on cookery wherein a laddu prepared from Shringaata is mentioned. Shringaata in Sanskrit means “a cone” as well as “a water chestnut”. The Hindi word Singhada is derived from this sanskrit word. Since a samosa is conical in shape, the word Singhada is applicable to it as well.