List your top 5 favorite fruits.
Society is collapsing and they want to know my five favorite fruits? Well, okay. Let’s see if I can find anything interesting to say about that. Here we go.
One: Pineapple. The pineapple is the most glorious and delicious fruit-ish food there is.* If I didn’t love squash so much, it would be my favorite food (note, squash are fruits, botanically). I know it has weird allergic properties for some people and messes up Jello, but pineapple makes anything better, including rum.
Two: Mango. This is another flavor that just knocks me out. It’s hard to get mango off the seed, but worth it. if you ever get a chance to eat a mango fresh from the tree, do it. There are sweeter and more complex varieties that do t ship well. It’s one of the treats I miss from living in South Florida (the other is fresh key limes). Mango margaritas, with or without tequila are divine beverages.
The next three are pretty much tied.
Three: Peaches. Make that ripe, juicy, non-mealy peaches. Mealy peaches are a huge disappointment. The best peaches I ever had were in Breckenridge, Colorado last year during the local harvest. Simply perfect. Here in Texas, the Fredericksburg peaches are also wonderful, though small. Just eat lots of them. I love peach cobbler.
Four: Pears. As with peaches, down with mealiness! Really I only like some types of pears, I find the crisp and astringent ones not pleasant. But a big ole juicy pear that is both sweet and tart makes me very happy. I’m also fond of canned pears with cheddar cheese.
Five: Plums. a perfectly ripe plum is glorious. I like all the kinds, from extra sweet to spicy, but not unripe or overripe. I give those to the chickens. I also like pluots, or whatever the hybrids are called. Plums are good cooked with pork.
Four out of my top five fruits start with the letter “p.” Hmm.
Runners Up
While I’m here, I may as well give my opinions on other fruits or sweet and juicy foods.
- Apricots. I doglike them as much as peaches. The skin texture isn’t my favorite. Apricot jam is fine!
- Bananas. I like the ones in the stores fine, and do love banana pudding. But, like mangoes, they are so much better straight from the tree. My dad used to grow pinkish ones with a peachy flavor.
- Berries. I like berry flavors, but not all those little seeds. Blackberries are my favorite, but I eat more free dewberries out of the fence lines.
- Cherries. Well, these are probably number 6 out of the top five. I can sure eat a good cherry. I like the Ranier ones best, but there are many good ones. The extra dark, extra sweet ones are better in an Old Fashioned. Yum.
- Citrus. I can’t have too much of it because of the acid reflux, but I like citrus, especially limes. I also love lemons and grapefruit. Some oranges are good and some taste like plastic wrap to me. The same goes for tangerines and related citrus. Some are great, some are awful, and you can’t tell until you open them up.
- Grapes. Some green grapes are too sour and bitter for me, but there are many grapes I’d swoon over, like the ones I had in Hilton Head. Wow. I find seeded grapes too much of a pain to eat many of, but I like to cook wild grapes and make sauces and such. They’re tangy, but the skin is sweet. Grapes are also excellent made into wine.
- Melons. Watermelon has to be very cold and sweet for me to enjoy, unless the rind is made into preserves. Muskmelons like cantaloupe and honeydew are nice in fruit salad. I enjoy them when served, but rarely buy them for myself.
- Strawberries. I put these separate. I do not like the seeds and hairy things on the outside. But well ripened ones make amazing shortcake.
I’m sure I missed something, but look at me! I wrote so many words about fruit. It did distract me from the news for a while!
*Let us not get all persnickety about what constitutes a fruit, a drupe, or a vegetable. I’m going with what we colloquially call fruits in the USA.
Oops! Left out pomegranate (delicious except the seeds) and papaya (smells awful). Kathleen thought of more P fruit.
The Hermits' Rest 