Our first introduction to crazy Indian fruits was at Crawford Market in Mumbai.  Not only are there tons of fruits we had never seen before, the prices of fruits we consider “exotic” were incredibly cheap.  Fruit like bananas, pineapples, etc. became an easy staple snack.  Always tasty and easy to find.  Fruit stands have the same popularity in South India as a convenient store here.. so you’re forced to eat healthy! The only thing I can say I really did not enjoy was drinking out of fresh coconuts.  It sounds so wonderful in theory, but the reality is that India is hot, and so your coconut juice will be warm.  Not exactly refreshing!

So, back to the market.  Our first task was to search for this fruit Nirav was obsessed with finding.. a custard apple.   We actually had no idea what the English name was for it until we met this Australian guy a few days later that actually used to be a custard apple farmer.  He had a bag with a picture of the fruit on it!  Mystery solved.  I know it looks kind of like an artichoke, but it’s extremely soft when ripe.  When you open it up, there’s white flesh inside, that, strangely enough, tastes like custard and is extremely creamy.  A sort of strange texture compared to most fruits we’re used to (imagine a really soft banana).

Almost everywhere in India were papayas.  They’re gigantic (like 5 pounds).  This distasteful presentation is actually due to necessity.  Papaya does not ripen on the tree, so you have to wrap it up in newspaper to ripen.

Most displays were extremely aesthetic, like this pile of watermelons.

From this spice store in Crawford market, we got to smell every spice they had before purchasing.  It was a lot of fun!

A common practice in India is to mix savory spices with your fruits.  Pineapple and guava, in particular, were served with a  spicy blend.  Of course, whether or not you got the spices on it was by choice, but if you agree to it, it’s certainly not a small sprinkling!   Still, it was something tasty and different.  Plus the fact that you could buy a whole pineapple for less than 50 cents made us quite addicted to pineapples during the trip.

One fruit I got at Crawford market that I loved and then never saw again were gooseberries.  Sort of like a sour grape.  Tasty!  We also got a fresh pomegranate.  Later in the trip, we found a little stand that was selling fresh figs.  I chowed down on those! Yum!

Posted by Carrie on Tuesday, March 25, 2008
Categories: india · 1 Comment »