Like taking ripe fruit from a tree

Ripe edibles are plentiful here. There are multiple growing seasons and if you know what to look for and how to prepare and eat it, with minimal effort you will have plenty to eat.

The house we lived in for the first month we were here had papaya, coconut, something-like-an-apple and lime trees in the yard. I love to cook with lime, so this was a blessing. We learned the hard way that the variety of lime tree on Pohnpei is loaded with one-to-three-inch thorny barbs. Yikes!

In our new house’s yard we have breadfruit, lemon, guava and banana and noni trees. When the breadfruit is overly ripe it falls to the ground with a thudding splat. The smell of the rotten fruit is surprisingly pleasant. The base scent is of ripe passion fruit and the underlying scent of that of sweet rotten apples. I would literally wear the scent as a perfume. Eau du Ferment anyone?

I have never been a big banana fan. It would have to be a near empty fruit bowl for me to select one for myself to eat.

For me, both of the varieties that are common in U.S. supermarkets do not have a super flavor and the texture is pasty, almost chalky. I wish I could have seen my own expression the first time I tried a banana here in Micronesia. Wow, hello multiple facets of flavor and silky mouth feel! Where have you been all my life? There are over 33 different kinds of bananas grown here and the few table bananas I’ve tried have multiple notes to the palate that range from lime to sugarcane.

To harvest bananas the whole tree (technically a rhizome) is cut down. And the banana stem is cut into sections to hang from a strip of hibiscus bark as a makeshift rope. A very strong rope. The banana flower can be cooked and eaten.

This is the karrot banana and it is so good it'll knock your socks off clean and into the washer. It is ripe when mushy to the touch, red on the outside and bright orange on the inside. It is delightful plain and is the best banana I have ever baked with.

I have always enjoyed fresh pineapple. Micronesia has the sweetest pineapples I have ever tasted. At the market I smell the bottom of the pineapple to determine ripeness. That’s right, I’m not too proud to sniff a pineapple butt. A pineapple should smell like a ripe, juicy pineapple. To eat it, I lob off the top and bottom and cut off the outer skin removing as little of meat as possible. Then, using a small flathead screwdriver, I pluck out the hard to digest seed pockets. To grow a pineapple tree. Simply plant the top of the pineapple.

There are many more fruits here I have yet to explore. I have heard of avocados as big as a softball. There are Noni and Starfruit trees across the street at the botanical garden and the market has several other interesting offerings that I have yet to investigate. One fruit at a time.

Fruit for breakfast, fruit for snack, fruit for dessert. Life is sweet.