Tasty, Exotic Fruits at the Garden

It’s the last weekend in June and the Naples Botanical Garden hosted its very popular annual family-friendly event, Taste of the Tropics. Nothing says summer like savoring a ripe and juicy mango that melts in your mouth or trying new, lesser-known exotic fruits or rare fruits, like the rambutan.

When freshly picked, the rambutan has a bright red or yellow skin covered with soft, hairy spikes, giving it that weird and distinctive look. For first-time eaters, the flavor is very similar to a sweet and juicy green grape.

Also offered are small bites of the red dragon and white dragon fruit, easily available at the produce section of local supermarkets. Some people compare the taste as a cross between a pear and a kiwi, but this exotic fruit is increasing in popularity and easily blended into smoothies, added to salads, and as a yogurt topping.

The Mamey Sapote is another prized and delicious, lesser-known tropical fruit that adapts well in the Southwest Florida warm climate. When ripe, it's salmon-dark pink, sweet and creamy (think creamy avocado) with a light fragrance. The fruit often weighs about one to three pounds, brown and slightly coarse or rough but don’t let that fool you! Its unique flavor combination has often been compared to a blend of sweet potato and honey, and perfect for a summer smoothie!

The Garden offered small bites of at least ten flavors of locally grown mangos. Ever wondered how many varieties of mangos exist beyond those encountered at the local market or beyond what you get to taste each summer? They also come in all different shapes, colors, textures, and tastes with names such as Orange Sherbet, Tom Py Khan, Saber, Peach, Glenn, Duncan, Fairchild, Van Dyke, Kent, and Hayden.

The Sugar Cane juicer was a crowd pleaser. It’s a fresh, sweet, and refreshing way to enjoy sugar cane. We’ve often seen stalks of sugar cane for sale, sometimes in small bundles. You are tempted to take it home and cut it into smaller pieces and chew on the fibrous inner core to extract the sweet juice, but that’s a lot of work! Drinking sugar cane juice is so much easier and rewarding!

Ever wonder how chocolate is made? Let’s make chocolate with cacao pods (Theobroma cacao), but the cacao pod on display is a long way from your favorite dark chocolate bar! Cacao or cocoa pods are the chocolate fruit and once ripe, you can crack them open, revealing the fleshy beans/seed inside. Some say the flesh is really tasty. The beans inside will undergo several processes before they are transformed into the chocolate you enjoy in your favorite ice cream or dark chocolate bar!

Bird Pepper Plants were on display, providing an interesting lesson on their heat index as compared to the more popular commercially available jalapeno pepper.

The Bird Pepper (Capsicum annum variety) is the only true pepper native to Florida. It is a wild relative of more common culinary varieties like bell or poblano.

It is called Bird Pepper as it is believed that many bird species prefer these small peppers as a food source. Birds are not affected by the heat of the peppers and they eat them without feeling any discomfort. Bird Peppers often grow wild.

A native Bird Pepper has a Scoville Heat Unit Index (SHU) ranging from 50,000 – 100,000 SHU, while the Jalapeno measures a mere 2,500-8,000 SHU! Interested in adding this spicy native to your garden?