Unexpected Charms of the Lychee By Jaanu Ah, the humble lychee. This popular tropical fruit has an incredibly distinctive, flowery flavor, and has gone from a fruit on the margins to a ubiquitous additive in all manner of desserts and café drinks. It is cultivated primarily across Southeast Asia, growing on midsize trees and requiring…

By Jaanu 3 out of every 4 caffeine consumers drink coffee at least once a day. Coffee is a popular drink for the same obvious reasons that it pervades most categories of consumer products from candles to cleaning equipment. It has a distinctive scent and flavor, and it makes many drinkers feel more energized because…

Autumn is for Asian Pear “Fibrous, filling, floral and phenomenal…” is how the Philadelphia Orchard Project describes the Asian pear. It’s been a popular and ubiquitous fruit in culinary circles for decades, considered the pear for those who hate pears, the pear for those who love pears, and the pear for those who think pears…

Cuckoo for Cucumbers The floodgates have been opened, and now we are covering all kinds of so-called “fruits.” While the seeded cucumber is technically a fruit, I would never consider it anything but a vegetable. The cucumber is a member of the gourd family and grows on creeping vines typically on frames and trellises. Yellow…

Don’t Eat Raw Tomato? Despite years of this column covering fruits of every description, we still haven’t penetrated the nebulous region of “Is it a fruit or a vegetable?” Well, technically, the tomato contains seeds and so it is the fruit of a vine plant- which makes it fair game as a subject for this…

Everyone Loves Pumpkin, but Why? May is pretty much the least haunted month of the year, but there’s no harm in starting your planning for decorative gourd season this early. Pumpkin is a winter squash native to North America, which is why it’s so closely associated with American holidays like Halloween and Thanksgiving. However, the…

What Are Acerola Cherries, and Why Should We Eat ‘Em? Barbados cherries, also called acerola cherries, are living the life we all wish we were living right now. They’re bright plants native to tropical regions of the Western Hemisphere; imagine spending all day on the beach, just growing. The shrublike plant on which the cherries…

Smooth Like Avocado: What is the Alligator Pear? I must admit, I’ve never heard the avocado called the alligator pear. The avocado, an evergreen tree, belongs to the laurel nobilis family. Originating in south-central Mexico and Guatemala, this fruit is also called the alligator pear or butter fruit. Avocado trees self-pollinate, and the high-fat content…

The Most Sub-Lime Fruit By Jaanu   People have known for many years and years that limes are extremely healthy fruits. Sailors, for instance, particularly in the 17th and 18th centuries, found that their recurring ailments of rashes, sores, aching fatigue, and bleeding in the gums were cured the more they ate limes. They deduced…

A Plum, Not a Prune Plums are much more closely related to prunes that you might think. Officially, any   tree or shrub in the genus Prunus are considered plum trees/shrubs. Popular, refreshing dessert fruits, plums are eating fresh and incorporated into a wide variety of sweets and pastries. Certain plums can be dehydrated into…