Saturday, August 2, 2008

Mystery fruit


When I was cruising the south coast of Puerto Rico with my daughter, she amused herself with taking pictures of many different kinds of fruit trees that grow there. I could identify most of them ( they were fruiting, after all) but this one is a mystery fruit to me. Anybody cares to identify it ?

I'll be eternally grateful! :-)

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Did the seeds stain your hands? It looks like achote (sp?) They are used to color food/rice. We have one in our yard.

Jeff

Minerva said...

Thanks Jeff. I have no idea if they are staining. I haven't notice the fruit in nature, nor the tree, just the photos my daughter made during our trip. This fruit photo was a surprise to me.

Anonymous said...

Achiote - the seeds are in the supermercado as annato seeds. It is a way to get around the all white foods here. It is a nice tree and you saute the seeds in oil and then strain them out - the oil is then used for cooking and it is a more-orange/red than saffron look. No taste. katrina

Minerva said...

Thanks Katrina. I got some annate seeds from Silka with a recipe for sofrito, so I guess the oil must be used in making sofrito. I'll try it.