In today’s edition of “The Way Things Used To Be”, we’re going to see yet another example of how globalization over the last 30ish years has changed everything, including the availability of produce. 19-3: Exotic Fruits I (and its soon-to-be-sequel, 19-4: Exotic Fruits II) highlights three fruits that seemed “exotic” back in the late 1980s-early 1990s: kiwi, carambola (“star fruit”), and mango.
Out of the three, I’d maybe consider carambola as the most “exotic”–kiwi and mango were already pretty popular by the 1990s (the heyday of brands like Nantucket Nectars and Snapple). Plus, which of the three do you think you’d have the hardest time locating in a grocery store these days? I mean, you’d find all of them, but you might have to go to like, two stores? When this was written, it’d have been much harder (especially based on where you lived).
I did not know that California produced a good portion of the world’s kiwifruit, but here’s more on that if you’re interested. Not as much mango or carambola production in the U.S.–most of both of those still come from where they are found natively.
Kiwi
I like the flavor of kiwi, but can’t say I’m a huge fan of the fruit on its own by itself. Plus, the fuzziness is weird to me.
Carambola
I haven’t run into any recipes that specifically call for carambola yet, but you could use it as garnish for a lot of the desserts, or as an ingredients in some of the fruit salads.
Mango
Not too many Simply Delicious recipes so far that use mango, but maybe I just haven’t discovered them yet?
