African Vanielje on Sep 05 2007 at 3:32 pm | Filed under: Uncategorized
Of all the tropical fruits I love, none remind me so forcibly of home as granadilla. You may know it more intimately as passion fruit, although technically the granadilla is part of the passiflora (passion flower) group. These glorious creepers originated in Mexico and South America, but some types tolerate sub tropical climates and thus are widely grown from California to Australia, and of course, Africa, and they are available year round (hooray!).
They are pretty easy to cultivate, and my mother, of the perenially green fingers, included them in her line up of usual suspects. We used to have a granadilla plant growing on the fence of our herb garden, the rampantly beautiful creeper was bright green with wildly curly tendrils like pig’s tails. Try as I might to find an old picture I had taken of the gorgeous passion flowers, I couldn’t. It is as clear in my memory though, as the smell of the borage and the apple trees growing alongside it, and the rows of glorious vines marching up the mountain, to the sky.
Granadilla’s (go on – say it with me: GRA – nah -DI – la ) always strike me as particularly African fruits, a little dried and wrinkled on the outside, but full of tart promise and life giving juice on the inside. They are pretty high in potassium and vitamins A & C, but like all tropical fruits seem like a culinary luxury rather than one of the tedious 5 – a – day. They are graphic in appearance, Africa is not a continent of subtlety, and once opened the tough outer skin spills out its cargo looking like the fabled unchangeable cheetah spots. In our house the delicious bounty is gone even faster than this extraordinary animal’s top speed.
We split the protective geriatric little gourd open scooping out the youthful and zesty seeds and pulp inside, eating it like a boiled egg. If we have plenty we sometimes use the tart juice and seeds to decorate and perfume a fresh fruit salad. As you can see the seeds are a fantastic garnish for desserts and they make great sorbet: tart, dusty, sweet and thirst quenching all at the same time. The true granadilla, of the dark purple skin is less acidic than the others and has a richer perfume and flavour, as well as more juice. It’s worth trying to use these if you can get them.
Occasionally when I can hoard enough I turn it into one of my all time favourite baked fruit tarts, including the pulp and the seeds. The final product resembling a cross section of the fruit which is its main ingredient.
I have managed to find a picture of a granadilla flower, not my own, on this wonderful South African site Bushveld . (Completely irellevantly I found a link to a pic of a rock python that had swallowed a gazelle. It was far too early in the morning for me to look at it, but for those of you who want to live the vicarious African Life, check it out). Back to the granadilla, yes alright the passionfruit flower. Well, you can see why I am so passionate about it. The flowers, the plant, the fruit, are all so delicate yet dramatic. So quintessentially African. How can I be anything but…
This post is my entry for Weekend Herb Blogging as started by Kalyn and hosted by Thyme for Cooking . Thanks to Cooksister’s Post where I found the event.
Sorry, I forgot to take a picture and it’s already been eaten. It seemed too cruel to photograph empty plates (not scraped but licked clean). It’s no hardship though, to bake some more – just for photo opportunities of course. In the meantime, give it a try yourself if you have access to these little pots of nectar.
This post has been updated (06 Sep) , now that I am more awake I realised how much I left out.
My kids love these too, scooped out with a spoon. Or squeezed all over the clouds of cream on a pavlova. i wish I had a pic of a flower for you, but we don’t have any growing here. i think our sandy soil is too hot and dry for them.
thanks Kit, I know I have a picture takien of a flower in midsummer a few years ago in the organic bee & butterfly herb garden outside my mom’s old restaurant. You know what it’s like, only that one will do, but I can’t find it. Still, I’m making another trip to the market today and will do another round of tarts. I might make some mini ones today. So some good is coming out of my obsession. BTW. Check out feeding my enthusiasms on my blogroll, she has already made an apple/lavender cake. It looks lovely.
Really a wonderful post for Weekend Herb Blogging, welcome. I’m always so happy when someone features a brand new ingredient, and I’m quite sure no one has ever written about this before. Wish I could taste this; maybe someday!
Aaaah, granadillas! Can there be a suburban garden in South Africa that does not have a creeper messily climbing over the back fence? I always adored the exotic flowers, but never really liked the fruit (I had issues with pips and sliminess – can you spot the difficulty?!). That is… until I ordered chocolate muffins at the Grand Cafe and Rooms in Plett last year and they served their super-decadent muffins with half a granadilla. Scooped onto the sweet muffins, the tart fruit was PERFECT!
That’s the flower on the vine growing by my kitchen door! I never knew what it was. I’ve never seen any fruit though… Could it bt that there are male and female plants, like the kiwifruit?
And I never knew how to eat granadilla…now I can buy some and try it. Wow, 2 new things for me in one post….I’d bettr go rest…
I am absolutely fascinated with South Africa…I lived in Cape Town for a few years as a child, and I remember huge beds of Birds of Paradise growing with abandon in our yard…now I’m wondering if perhaps these granadillas might have been lurking about the fence line as well?! Thanks for a lovely, interesting post to enjoy with my cup of tea this morning.
Hi Kit, I googled (the shame) and found a pic, just so people could see what I was ranting about.
Kalyn, I really like the WHB thing, and especially since it is not just restricted to herbs (which I love BTW), I learned something of fennel on Jeanne’s blog this morning.
At least you’ll recognise it when you do unexpectedly come across it so that you can pounce on it with gusto.
Jeanne, you’ve got it in one. And you sure do know how to travel.
Katiez, when you’re done resting, I’m not a gardener, but I believe it depends on what type of passion fruit you have. The sweet granadilla is sub-tropical so can deal with slightly colder temps, and doesn’t always flower (therefore no fruit) in extreme heat. None of them like really dry soil, and they are not best designed for survival of the species. I guess it’s all looks and no brain for these beautiful guys. Sometimes the bees steal all their pollen, sometimes the plants don’t produce pollen early enough and all their sticky out bits (pistils, stamens etc) are doing the hokey when the pollen’s doing the pokey. In other words,(from a non-botanist – can you tell?)they never get their timing quite right. Some plants do well with human assisted hand pollination, some don’t, and some get help from more neighbourly bees, while others just don’t get up early enough (I can relate) to be in the running. There is generally only 1 fruit to I flower so although the vines are quite rambunctious, they don’t always put their money where their mouths are. Phew! There are enough mixed metaphors in there to thoroughly disguise the fact that I’m pretty clueless when it comes to plant nookey. Perhaps you should just take a cutting to your local plant centre?
Belinda, I’m ashamed to admit to a very un-South African dislike of strelitzias (birds of paradise). They are sometimes called crane flowers, and I love the gawkiness of the blue crane, our national bird, it is somehow endearing, but I find the strelitzias agressive. It is really quite odd, I know, but they along with proteas (our national flower) are two of my least favourite flowers. The granadilla, on the other hand, I’m besotted with. Perhaps because, like me, it is rambling, rather wild and overblown, and quite undisciplined. I’m glad you could travel a little over your morning cuppa. We aim to please..
haha! That’s funny, Inge! I have to say that I love the strelitzias, I suppose mainly because I associate them with happy memories of that house with the beautiful views of Table Mountain through the upstairs windows, and also because I only ever see them here in florist’s flower arrangements, and in limited quantities. And yes, travel memories along with my cup of tea is a good way to start the day before the horses beckon me to the barn.
This is a great post – I could feel the taste of Granadilla in my mouth… I like Granadillas, too.
Thanks for your comment to my Chinese bell peppers and the congratulations. I liked your recipe as well, nice picture, too.
Great that you took part in the event – so I got to know your blog and I surely will surf here once in a while and enjoy reading it!
welcome barbara, thanks and see you soon (your blog or mine)