M’sa and I saw the trees on our way to and from San Ignacio, Belize. I was curious to know whether anyone else ate them so I asked our driver/tour guide. He stated that they called them “almonds” though as children they were urged not to go near because of spirits that congregate around them. I thought that was so fascinating because as recounted in my blog post from 2010, the tree we had growing in our backyard in Ghana was cut down in part at the insistence of our paternal grandmother who believed them to be the meeting spot for witches.
In either case, when we got to San Pedro, Belize, we had ample time to walk up and down the beach looking for ripe enough sea almond fruit to eat. I left M’sa to do the dirty job of prodding at trees with sticks and cracking the hard shell with a stone. If you ask her, she would tell you I would point out a ripe fruit to her and then quickly walk away innocently. But, I contributed by finding said stone, and oh yeah, by partaking in the eating of both the fibrous fruit and the raw nut.
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Row of sea almond trees by the roadside
Contemplating
Young unripe fruit
Sea almond shell, meet rock
Yummy raw sea almond nut
The progression
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A lover of mangoes. A woman - smart, without pretense, lefthanded, Afropolitan - navigating this thing called life. An unapologetic believer in social justice and karma. Choosing to radiate positive energy and be true to myself. Here, my musings.
how do the ripe fruits taste? the overripe "drops" I find here in La Paz BCS (Mexico) seem gooey, like they might contain a lot of sugar, so I'm curious as to whether or not they'll be a good source of fermentables.
They taste sweet-sour. Not too juicy. Not sure what you mean by fermentables.
Thanks for this. I have been trying to figure out the name for sometime. In Nigeria we just called it "Fruit".