Flavors of America: A Tropical Fruit Stand In NYC

Do you like to try new foods? Will you expand your culinary horizons? Are you an adventurous eater?

I’m not, not really. I have my limits. When we were in Vietnam, I passed on the scorpions. And, I often pass on my dear husband’s fine cooking.

Otherwise, I’ll eat pretty much anything, anywhere, anytime.

Although it usually leads to disappointment, I like to try new items in the experimental produce aisle. That’s how I discovered the bland Grapples that my daughter loves.

Grapples look like apples but they’re supposed to taste like Concord grapes. Maybe in Washington state, where they’re grown, they do actually taste like Concord grapes. But, by the time they reach my Upstate NY supermarket, they have all the flavor of a bag of chalk. Less, even.

Still, I’m an optimist. I keep hoping that this time the $3 mango will be juicy and sweet. It happened once. Lightning could strike again.

Now the stars must have been perfectly aligned yesterday on our drive to deposit Diana at JFK airport.

Diana just happens to be an expert at finding sweet tropical fruits. On a life-long quest to taste every fruit, she has climbed trees, bushwhacked past thorns, and decimated many pick your own farms.

So, when we made a wrong turn in NYC that landed us on 1st and 116th Street, instead of the Triborough Bridge, we immediately thought about sampling “local” foods.

We were in luck, immediately spotting a tropical fruit stand run by a young man from Santo Domingo.

With this selection, we probably didn’t need Diana to pick the sweetest fruits.

We didn’t ask him how he imported his wares, but I can easily imagine that he has friends and family flying them in daily. They taste as fresh as if we just picked them on a Caribbean island.

However, even with this magnificent assortment, it didn’t hurt to have Diana select the best of the best.

Mangoes -

We found several varieties of succulent mangos that literally dripped with so much flavor that they are best consumed at the beach, or over a sink.

Diana chose several small, yellow mangoes that are just like the ones that grow on the trees that sprout like weeds in Puerto Rico. She claims that this is one of the sweetest varieties to be found anywhere. For immediate satisfaction, she also included a few larger mangoes that were obviously ripe, and ready to devour.

Sugarcane -

Alex, whose sweet tooth knows no bounds, clamored for the sugarcane, asking to have it peeled and cut into manageable pieces right away.

(Note - Although a working knowledge of Spanish is helpful in these situations, hand gestures would’ve served just as well as this is a common request.)

Later, I asked Diana how she chose the sugarcane. She explained that the sweetest canes are the ones that have the longest growth period, which you can find by looking for the stalks with the longest segment between joints. (See Sugarcane Botany.) And the sweetest part of the sugarcane stalk is the thicker bottom section.

Genips -

The only way to select sweet genips is to taste them, and most fruit stands will let you sample at least one. However, to provide an adequate quantity of genips, most sellers will include bunches from several trees, with a wide range of sweetness.

These were not the sweetest genips, more like a Sweet Tart than anything else. However, we’ll take them any way we can. Even back home in the Virgin Islands, these fruits are usually not available until their annual season in August.

Unfortunately, we weren’t dressed to enjoy the genips right away. The peach-colored inner fruit leaves an ugly brown stain, and we already have piles of marred shirts. Kayla improvised a bib, but the rest of us had to wait.

Papaya -

The last item on our impromptu shopping spree was a large papaya.

It isn’t a popular fruit in my home now, and I never liked them while growing up in St. Thomas. I used to ignore the volunteer papaya plants in our yard.

But, I’ve discovered that a wedge of papaya is a perfect complement to a breakfast meal. Today, I savored a delightful Sunday morning brunch of sunny-side-up egg accompanied by toast and papaya chunks. Delicious!

More Flavors of America:

Discover corn dogs and Italian ice at Coney Island in Flavors of America in New York City.

Ice Cream Incentive - The ingredients in Blue Moon ice cream are a well-kept secret, but see if you can pick them out at Moxie’s in Troy, NY.

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