Botanicals and Biologicals

Today's entry is on stuff that grows in the tropics. In an earlier blog entry, I mentioned that I had met the owner of Paris Bahamas skin care company who was processing poinciana seeds for her cosmetics company. I was surprised by her statement that the oil of the seeds has anti-oxidant properties. I collected a handful below. I wanted to know if the seed was edible. I didn't find out, but I did find out that the seed is 13.5% oil which is high and that it contains fatty acids. I have to do some more googling, because there are more poinciana trees around here than you can shake a stick at.


And then we have mameys. I have had Cuban mameys, and they were delicious. They were more like sapodillas. These had two huge seeds in them with a bit of flesh that wasn't that particularly sweet.

The two big yellow things that I am holding are the seeds from one of those. The flesh is a mere coating on the surface of mostly seeds. The taste of this had puke undertones -- not as much as jujus, but the fruit is highly disappointing as a fruit. Not a great future in the exotic, expensive fruit niche.

Yves' Mango Tree

MIRACLE MANGO TREE FOR SALE

Yves has a little two year old mango tree in the back yard. It is only a meter or so tall. It is quite small.
The young tree is producing a lot of mangoes.

Mangoes are rich in iron, calcium, sulfur, benzene and arsenic, and other beneficial vitamins. They are good for breakfast, lunch or dinner. Just two of these things have enough nutrition to feed a family of ten. I collect about 6 mangoes a week from this tree.

I will send you this tree for free. Just pay shipping and handling of $25,000 (US Dollars) and this wonder tree can be yours. (Note: When shipped, the tree looks like a stick. Just plant the stick and water it, and you will get these wonderful mangoes in a couple of weeks).

Dillies Almost Ripe

I can't believe it. I found a dillie tree, or sapodilla tree, and with fruit on it. And further, the tree is in a public place where I can get some of the fruit. And it is within walking distance from my house.

I love dillies. When they are ripe, they taste like pumpkin pie and ice cream sprinkled with sugar. You can actually taste the nutmeg overtones in the fruit. It is an amazing tropical fruit. What is more amazing, is that this is the tree that gives chicle -- the sap that is the base of chewing gum. That is where they get the word Chiclet for the popular brand of gum.

I was walking home from the bank machine yesterday, and decided to not take the direct route back home, and I came across this dilly tree. I won't even give any clues, because it will be stripped bare if I do. One can pick green dillies and wait for them to ripen. You can bet that I will visit it often in the next few weeks.

Jujubes in Season

The Lovely One and I were walking on the beach and we met our friend Evan. He gave us some jujubes which are in season again. I notice that it was in February of last year that I wrote about jujubes. Here is what I wrote:

We used to eat a candy of the same name. However, don't let the name fool you. These things don't taste like candy. They taste like a sweet concoction of apple and baby vomit.

The scientific name is Ziziphus zizyphus, and they are also called jujuba, Rhamnus zizyphus, Jujube, Red Date, and Chinese Date. The Koreans use them as medicine to relieve stress, and there is an Australian drink called "1-bil" which uses these things as a pick-me-up drink to relieve stress.

The Chinese dry and smoke the fruit, and also make a wine and vinegar from them. You can also get a syrup to go into your tea from the jujubes. Asians consider the fruit and aphrodisiac and in Bhutan, the leaves are used as an insecticide potpourri.

Jujubes have a large seed in them and resemble a Barbados cherry in texture but not in taste. Our friend Evan said that they were an acquired taste. They certainly were. I forced myself to get over the "vomit" taste and ate the bowlful, because they might have tropical micro-nutrients that my body was missing, but I don't see these things getting popular anytime soon.