Big papayas
High quality fruit piles high in the markets of Mexico. From the exotic pitthaya to the everyday orange, fruit here is fresh and cheap.
If you come from a northern country, like me, just try a banana. Tell me it isn’t the best banana you’ve ever had.
Bananas travel north to the U.S. from Mexico and Central America. They are picked green in order to survive the journey and they ripen on the way. So they aren’t nearly as good as when they are given time to ripen on the tree.
Or take the humble orange. The ones grown in Florida were bred to have that thick white skin. It makes them easier to ship. Sometimes the orange is so dry you almost have to choke it down.
Not here in Mexico. Oranges have thin skin and are juicy as hell. Most of the year I can get two bags of them for just a dollar or two – enough for a huge glass of juice every day for a week. Grapefruit too.
6 kilos of oranges costs about 1.60 USD
Don’t buy fruit in a supermarket. Sure, some things like bananas and pineapples will be good. But because most of the fruit on this list is seasonal or regional, for it to make the trip to a big-box supermarket like Wal-Mart, Garis, or Chedraui, it must be picked green as well.
Instead, seek out the mercado municipal (municipal market) anywhere in Mexico. You’ll see different fruit in different states, and each time you’ll see something you’ve never tried or even heard of before. If someone offers you a sample, take it!
Fruit in a Mexico City market
You can get good fruit on the street too. Fruit trucks sell whatever is in season for great prices. Or sometimes people walk around selling it out of wheelbarrows.
Fruit on the street in Chiapas
Here are some of my favorites to get you started. This is not complete list. Every time I travel I find more. Please leave suggestions in the comments.
I refer to each fruit by its most commonly used name in Spanish, followed by the name in English (if I know what it is).
Pitthaya (dragon fruit)
Pitthaya is most commonly found in southern Mexico. In the north you might find it in a supermarket, but as I said, it probably won’t be any good.
A ripe pitthaya has a strong flavor and a texture like a kiwi. In Mexico I’ve always seen ones that were white inside, but in Guatemala they were purple and much better.
Pitthaya in Guatemala
They are easy to eat. Just cut it in half and spoon out the fruit.
Pitthaya in Mexico
Rambutans / lychee / guayas
These three fruits all have a similar texture on the inside, though they look different on the outside. In central Mexico lychees are in season in late summer. In southern Mexico rambutans are especially prevalent in Chiapas, while guayas are all over the street in the Yucatan.
Rambutans are the red ones on the right
Lychee
Guayas, or mamones in Honduras
For all three, pierce the skin with a thumbnail. The skin is easy to pull back. Pop the whole fruit in your mouth and eat around the seed. Delicious.
Paterna (burburry)
Paterna, known as cushin in Mayan Guatemala and burberry in English, looks like a big pea pod. Inside is a cotton-candy coating on big black inedible seeds. It’s uniquely delicious and fun to eat.
Selling cushin on the street in Guatemala
It’s easier to find in Guatemala than in Mexico, though I have spotted it in out-of-the way places in Chiapas.
Guayaba (guava)
Maybe it’s because I’m from Michigan, but I never had a guayaba until moving to Mexico. At first glance it doesn’t seem as exotic as paterna or pitthaya.
Here in Mexico they are usually solid inside with an off-white, yellowish flesh. Outside they are yellow-green, sometimes with red spots. They have a light, very subtle, almost pungent flavor.
The consistency is quite soft except for hard, unchewable seeds that you are tempted to spit out, but there are far too many. So you have to gum it. But if you dig the taste then getting over the hard seeds is easy.
Where I live and in most other parts of Mexico they are small, the size of a golf ball.
These guayabas are making me hungry
But sometimes you can find big ones. Recently I also found pink guayabas, which I rarely see. Eating these variations might have made guayabas my favorite fruit in Mexico.
Two varieties of guayaba
Tuna (prickly pear)
These grow atop the nopal cactus. You can eat the leaves of the cactus too – they must be cooked, either fried or grilled.
Nopal cactus with ripe tunas
The fruit is sweet, but like the guayaba it has hard seeds that can’t be chewed.
Tunas (tuna the fish is called atun)
Tunas are easy to peel. Just cut into the skin and pull it back. Don’t let the big hard seeds put you off!
Xoconochtle
When you see a name like that, you know the fruit is native Mexican.
Xoconochtle
Xoconochtle may look like a cross between the tuna and the guayaba, but it has a distinctly powerful, bitter flavor. That’s why it’s usually included in juice mixtures rather than eaten straight.
Capulines (chokecherry)
It looks like a miniature cherry, minus the curvy stem. But it has a flatter flavor, less sweet but not sour.
I’ve been told that capuline trees only grow in a few parts of the state of Mexico. They come into season in late summer and can be bought by Otomi ladies on the streets of Temoaya.
Capulines
Eat them like a cherry – don’t bite into the pit.
Granada china (sweet granadilla)
It looks weird and has a mucus-like texture, but granada china is good. Really. I’m not kidding.
Granada china
Just crack it open and go at it.
Granada china in a market
Granada (pomegranate)
Pomegranates are in season in late summer and early fall in central Mexico. They figure prominently in Chiles en Nogada, a big bell pepper stuffed with meat and fruit and covered in walnut sauce, parsley and pomegranate seeds. It’s easily one of the best meals in Mexico.
The pomegranate is well known, but I include it in this list for two reasons. First of all, it is crazy delicious and much cheaper in Mexico than anywhere else I’ve seen.
Granada (pomegranate) – break it, don’t slice into it
Second, I think many people don’t know how to peel it. I didn’t for a long time.
First, cut off the top in a little circle. Then make shallow slices along the ridges of the fruit. The idea is to not cut into the red, fruit-covered seeds.
With the top off and slices along the ridges, you can pull the fruit apart and have some nice chunks to eat from. You can eat the white stuff, so don’t bother picking it off each seed. Just bite right in.
Plums, peaches, apricots, etc.
You can find all of these too, especially in late summer and early fall. Look out for ciruelos, golden plums, my favorite.
Golden plums
Mango
Everyone knows the mango, but you don’t really know the mango until you have had a soft, juicy ripe one. And make sure you cut it correctly.
How to cut a mango
Have you tried all of these fruits? Have you seen them in other countries? And what have I missed?
If you plan on traveling to Cancun or the Mayan Riviera, please click here. And thanks for reading.
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Colony "The plamas".
