Cherimoya ✦

Chérimole

What it is

Its flowers open female for the best part of a day, then turn male for a few hours once the female phase has closed, so a tree cannot pollinate itself and the small beetles that do the work at home never crossed the Atlantic. Every fruit in the Spanish crop — the largest in the world — is pollinated by hand, flower by flower, with a brush and a pot of collected pollen.

In the kitchen

Cut it and it browns within minutes: squeeze lime over the flesh the moment it is open, and chill the whole fruit beforehand or the custard slumps to liquid and takes the perfume with it. Pick the seeds out rather than blitzing them — they are toxic.

Goes with

Lime Cream Vanilla Passion fruit Dark rum Pineapple

Same species

Soursop

In season alongside

Blood orange Mara des Bois strawberry Lychee Mandarin Mango Persimmon

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