Get the Best from Your Favorite Fruits

Guapple, a recent cultivar of mango.

Buko, young coconut - most popular nut
for fruit, juice and salad

Atis (Anona squamosa)

Caimito (Chrysophyllum cainito)

Abe V Rotor

My dad used leaves of kakawate or madre de cacao (Gliricida sepium) to ripen bananas inside earthen jars. He lined the inside of the jar with fresh of leaves kakawate, placed the green latundan or lakatan bananas, then covered them with more leaves before turning the jar down or covering its mouth with wilted banana leaves and jute sack. In two or three days the bananas are bright yellow, evenly ripe, and without blemish – and does not have the residual odor of carburo (calcium carbide) which is now a common practice today to force the ripening of fruits.

He cautioned me as a farmhand that only when the fruits have reached maturity that they should be harvested. He gave me these tips that I have kept in mind every time my sister sends green fruits to Manila where my family now resides, or whenever we buy fruits from the market.

1. Be keen with the appearance, smell, feel – and even sound – of the fruit before harvesting or buying it. For example, jackfruit or nangka when fully mature is yellowish green, and its spikes are well spread. The rind gives way to slight pressure and you smell the faint characteristic sweet odor. When tapped with the forefinger the sound is dull and deep.

2. Many fruits are tested this way. You must have a clinical eye, ear, nose, and finger (EENF). And if the vendor allows you, sample the fruit. There’s no substitute to Taste Test. Develop your skills on these fruits: mango, musk melon, soursop or guyabano and its relative, sugar apple or atis. Also try on caimito, chico, siniguelas, and such rare fruit as sapote.

3. You cannot always use all senses though for all fruits. Take the case of watermelon. This is perhaps the most difficult fruit to know when to harvest it, or which one to pick from a fruit stand. Study the rind. The alternate rows of green and yellowish green shades are wide spread, making the fruit appear round, plumb, and shiny. The attached stem (peduncle) should be green, at least green at the attachment; otherwise the fruit had long been picked. Be keen with the sound as you tap at different parts with the nail of your forefinger. Resounding and vibrating sound indicates the fruit is not fully ripe. Deep and dull sound on the other hand, means it is over ripe, especially if the rind yields to pressure. Sixth sense and luck often accompany good choice.

4. When buying young coconut or buko, the vendor usually asks you want it for salad or just for the water. Then he taps the nut with the back of his bolo twice or thrice. It’s sixth sense, I suppose because there is no rule to follow. It is just like picking a nut of macapuno (coconut sport). At Los Banos I tried to learn how to differentiate macapuno from a normal nut just by its sound upon hitting the ground. Ask the coconut harvester and he will tell you how. But there are things you simply cannot learn. Could this be a part of the gift of “green thumb”?

5. In the city you use the rice dispenser to ripen chico, caimito, avocado, tomato, and the like. Wrap the fruits loosely with two or three layers of newspaper before placing them inside the dispenser – or simply bury the bundle in a sack of rice. In the province palay is preferred. The principle is that, as the fruit ripens it exudes ethylene gas that is then trapped. It builds up and induces ripening and all the fruits ripen almost at the same time.

6. To ripen fruits that do not readily get ripe, specially those which lack maturity, put table salt on the cut stem (peduncle) soon after it has been picked. For fruits bought from the market, clean the base of the stem before putting salt. Salt does not only facilitate ripening, it also protects the fruit from fungi and bacteria that cause it to rot. Try this technique on mango, nangka, chico, caimito, guyabano, and papaya.

7. Look for unusual marks. Freckles and warts are signs of fungal and viral diseases affecting banana, especially latundan. Black spots on mango is sign of anthracnose fungus. Black ridges on atis are sign of an insect that bores into the flesh. Pinpricks on depressed and uneven skin of cucumber are entry points of fruit flies. Most likely the insect’s larvae are still inside. Holes lead to spoilage of the whole frui in santol, macopa and guava. These holes are made by the same fruit fly that are of two species. Dacus dorsalis is the worse pest that attacks the mango fruit. The reason mango importing countries have strict quarantine regulation is not only to assure the quality of the commodity but because this insect lives on apple, orange and other fruits as alternate hosts. While these insects and pathogens are generally harmless to humans, it is the byproducts of putrefaction that may cause ailments including allergy.

8. This is myth. The presence of black ants on lanzones, many believe - and it is a good selling point, means that the fruit is sweet. Black powdery fungus and aphids on the stem and fruits may be the reason why the ants are there. They live in symbiosis with the aphids. The black fungus grows on the sugar secretion of the aphids, which also serves as food for the ants.

9. This is another myth. Oranges with deep bottom is sweeter than those with even bottom. Purple caimito is sweeter than the green skinned. Well, both are green but one variety turns red violet when ripe. Purple avocado is also green when unripe, just like the green variety. Like caimito it is not in anyway better in taste and texture. Perhaps it is psychological. Papaya is ripe when it turns yellow or orange yellow. There are papaya varieties that retain much of their green coloration even when fully ripe, and they are as sweet as the yellow ones.

10. The bigger the better. Not always. Native chico is sweeter and more aromatic than the ponderosa chico. It is firmer, less susceptible to fruit fly, and has longer shelf life. This is also true with the native guava. Large duhat is preferred because it is fleshy, but the native duhat is much sweeter. Big lanzones has large seeds. Bicol (Formosa variety) pineapple, although not juicier, is sweeter than the Hawaiian variety. Extra large banana must have been grown on very rich soil, so that it is less sweet and firm than the smaller banana of the same variety. Large cucumber is seldom preferred. Commercial pickling cucumber is thumb size.

11. For citrus, the main criterion is sweetness and fleshiness. Pinkish color is preferred. For rambutan, it is the bright red color that attracts most. Taste test should prove it is really sweet and the pulp can be easily dislodged from the rind. For mangosteen, the color should be deep purple and shiny, and the sepals are still intact and green. When buying, examine the bunch for some hidden over ripe fruits. Again, Taste Test is the best tool.

12. Of course we always pick up the biggest mango, nangka, caimito, watermelon, cantaloupe, honeydew, avocado, atis, guyabano, and the like. It depends though on your budget and if there is an special occasion. The jackfruit is the biggest fruit on earth. It can weigh up to 35 kilos, and it is very expensive. A kilo may cost as much as 100 pesos.

13. There are vegetables that are eaten as fruit or prepared into juice. Examples are carrot, tomato, green corn, and sweet green pea. Vegetables made into fruit juices are tomato and carrot. When preparing these juices, pick the best kind. It was in China where I tasted asparagus juice. Now hear this. Have you tasted bamboo juice?

How to enjoy your favorite fruit after you have sufficiently chosen and ripened it is how it is served. It is a general rule that the best fruits are eaten fresh, and the inferior ones are made into preserves such as jelly, jam, and pickles. They can be made into candies. A common way to prepare fruit juices is by first making puree from the pulp using as osterizer or fruit juicer. You can keep this in the refrigerator as mother stock. Now and then the children prepare their own mix from it adding sugar and milk. Try papaya puree and purees made from guyabano, guava, ripe or green mango, and pineapple.

Try some varieties. Frozen caimito. Nangka ice cream. Dried mango. Pineapple boat with fruit cocktail. Candied papaya. Avocado cubes. Fruit toppings on ice cream. Durian candies. Now hear this. Have you tasted Chico wine? Guava wine? Many fruits make excellent table wine. And we have the technology and skill.

To enjoy the abundance of your favorite fruits consult the fruit season calendar. Bananas, jackfruit, papayas abound all year round. In the city even seasonal fruits are available but the price is high. Off-season lanzones comes from Camiguin, mango from June to December comes from Mindanao. But caimito, siniguelas and guyabano are strictly seasonal and are not always readily available in the market. Durian and Marang are not only seasonal, they are exclusively grown in the south, and they must be eaten directly when ripe. So with strawberry which is grown only on semi-temperate climate.

Enjoy thus your favorite fruits. Wouldn’t it be more complete given the ambiance of the song “Guavas are Ripe” and the painting of Amorsolo of a rustic scene of a fruit-laden mango tree?

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Living with Nature, by AVR, UST Manila