Sapodillas (Manilkara zapote) are in season again and this year we have a bumper harvest. The fruit has a very sweet caramel-honey taste. We have been picking them every morning. For an inexperienced picker, the ripe fruit forms a taut and shiny appearance. At first it is difficult to spot but after picking hundreds of them you can get the hang of it. Here is a picture of Gnome ready for action on the farm!
Gnome Armed With Fruit Picker.Picking Sapodilla.Picking Sapodilla!
This year, we are going to sun-dry some of them. We like to eat them with beef jerky!
Dried Sapodilla.
Some more sapodilla melomel would go down nicely!
Sapodilla Melomel.
Oooooh, so many to pick and so much to make!! We will of course eat some of them too…
The days are becoming hotter and drier, with rains becoming fewer and far between. This is the time to harvest anything that you can get your hands on and dry it.
Sapodillas are still in season:
Sapodilla Fruit.
We have gathered quite a bit to sun-dry.
Dried Sapodilla Fruit.
When dried, they make a very good substitute for dates; they are intensely sweet and would be good for baking. Gnome will be making mead with dried sapodilla…watch this space!
We have also been drying orange peel:
Dried Orange Peel.
Dried orange peel can be added to savouries like stews, curries and soups to impart a warm, orange flavour. It can also be ground up and used in cakes and breads. It is extremely versatile and uses up something that you would normally throw away. I hate to waste anything, especially when it involves something edible! Look out for my recipes which use orange peel:
Sapodilla Curry with Venison.
You will find this recipe in Belize Wild Recipes; this one is an orange peel curry.
Okay everyone, start sun-drying all your fruits now!!
We are posting up our first lot of seeds for sale in The Apothecary. This is the season for Sapodilla (Manilkara zapota) and so we are offering these fresh seeds as a once off for the year. until they run out.
Just out of interest, when we first moved to Belize 10 years ago, one of the first things that we did was to buy fence posts to delineate a border around our farm. In Belize, the best wooden posts, which are supposed to last a lifetime are ones cut from the sapodilla tree. We ordered quite a fair amount and we felt that, out of respect for the tree, we would plant an orchard of them on our farm.
Sapodilla Fruit.
We bought a wide variation of this fruit from Punta Gorda market; some were round-shaped, others heart-shaped and some very large like grapefruit. We planted all the seeds from the different morphological varieties and the trees started bearing within 7 years. It was a long time to wait but definitely worth it.
Sapodilla Fruit, Ready To Eat.
As you can see from our projects, it is a very good tasting fruit which is ideal for wine-making and culinary delights like curries and pasta sauces. It can also be used for sweets like fruit tarts, jams and preserves. Sapodilla has a unique sweet flavour of cinnamon and caramel; the texture is that of a grainy peach. It is also a very good timber for fence posts and carpentry. The seeds have medicinal value and can be used crushed up for insomnia and as a natural sedative. The tree is famous for chicle which can be tapped from the trunk.
Sapodilla Seeds.
To germinate, they can be placed 2 inch deep in moist soil; this will take up to 6 weeks. The other option is to carefully remove the shell from the seed (this can be a bit tricky) and then placing it in 2 inch deep soil. The second option allows faster germination …usually within 2 weeks. Keep the plant growing in a pot for a full year and once you are ready to plant, allow 10 metres (30 feet) between each sapodilla tree. They get really big!!
For our international readers, you can grow this plant in a green house or indoors and kept like a bonsai. Check out The Apothecary if you want some seeds.
It is the beginning of harvest time for Sapodilla fruit here in Belize. We planted a whole orchard of this delectable fruit so we are expecting a bountiful crop this year.
Ripe Sapodilla Fruit.
The Sapodilla tree is widely known for the gummy latex which is obtained from the bark to make chicle. The fruit have the texture of rough peaches and have a distinctive cinnamon taste. Since we have so much of it, I have started to experiment with it. So far, I have found that they have a similar consistency to tomatoes, so I am using them as a substitute. Today I made Spicy Sapodilla Sauce with Pasta:
Spicy Sapodilla Sauce with Pasta.
I used Seed Amaranth as a garnish because I thought that the sauce was a tad pale looking. Don’t worry if you don’t have that…it was just to add a bit of colour.
Amaranth Plant on my Doorstep.
I spiced up the sweet sauce with chilli peppers, onion and spring onions. The result was a thumbs up from Munchkin and Gnome! Watch out for more Sapodilla recipes…might try pizza next!
