Delicious Rio Roadkill
One of the pleasures of living in a tropical climate is that all kinds of exotic fruit are available year round. Of course “exotic” is subjective term – for me, exotic fruits include mango, guava and papaya (in Portuguese, manga, goiaba and mamão respectively). I guess the average Brazilian would be more impressed with raspberries, rhubarb and blueberries.
Here in Rio, there are mango trees everywhere. They are huge and easily recognisable because of their distinctive finger-like leaves and the fact that they are often heavily laden with fruit.
Look out below! Having one of these land on your head would be unpleasant.
As I said, you find them everywhere. I snapped this one in a hospital car park:
This huge tree had littered the hospital car park with squished fruit.
And what grows up, must come down:
Man(go) down!
And it’s not just mangoes. Right next to the mango tree I spotted a Jackfruit tree. Jackfruit can grow to enormous sizes – these ones are still fairly small.
If you go walking in the hills around Jardim Botanico you will see (and smell) these splatted all over the road.
There are upsides and downsides to all this urban fruit fecundity. On a positive note, fruit is very cheap and if you have a garden or live near one of these trees, you can get it for free. On the downside, there can be a lot of stinky fruit roadkill. And there is a particular tree which drops huge numbers of very hard, green fruit which cause a mess and threaten to trip me up when I’m jogging in the park (first world problems, eh?).
These little fruit are rock solid and littered all over the streets and squares of Rio.
Then there are these little yellow ones with the purple flesh. I’ve never quite worked out whether these are just young mangoes that fell off too early or if they’re something else. They often have gnaw marks from (I guess) fruit bats or rats.
What do you think? Baby mangoes? Or something else?
One of my favourite fruit roadkills has to be the guava. They smell delicious, even when they’re squished on the floor!
Hmmm, tempting! Even though they don't have the red flesh, I'm pretty sure these are guava. They smell great!
And can anyone help me identify these? They looked like small, red apples, but check out that stone in the middle! Weird right?
Maximum respect to anyone who can provide me with a positive ID on these mystery fruit. **UPDATE** These are called Jambo! Thanks Julia P!
So that’s my little dose of Eat Rio fruity fun for today. So far I have resisted the temptation to pick any of this stuff up and eat it, but if times ever get tough, I wouldn’t rule it out. And by the way, I hope you appreciate the pains I went to to bring you these images. People give you some really strange looks when you take photos of squashed fruit on the floor…
Guava smells realllyyy good when its crushed.
I have to admit, I saw some roadkill earlier today that made me almost cry. I won’t go into it. Fruit roadkill is about 10 billion times better. Lets just stick to fruit roadkill on here, OK Tom? We all know you’re a perv (you’re English) so keep your other roadkill perversion/fetishes to yourself. Thanks!!!!
Ha ha ha! Don’t forget that being English I am also an evil villain! According to Hollywood that is…
Seriously though, guava smells great doesn’t it? I actually have to stop when I walk past the guava section in the supermarket – I don’t think it has quite got to the stage of arousal (yet), but it’s one hell of a fragrance…
Yeah, I’m not at the level of arousal for the fragrance yet either. When you cut it open though, that’s a different story. I’ll leave to your imagination as to why.
Have fun being a perverted villain! Must be nice!
Tom,
Rasberries ( Framboesa ) is quite common in Sao Paulo and in the south of Brazil.
Rhubarb is not exotic at all, it is actually very popular in the interior, “country” side parts of Brazil and is known as a “redneck” food! Called Rui Barbo in Portuguese, and picture that with a very “redneckish” accent!! ;)
Blueberries are indeed exotic in Brazil, but are becomin more and more common, it is called “Mirtilo” in Portuguese and you can find it for 30 Reais per kilo! It is produced in Santa Catarina, Sao Paulo and Minas Gerais!! :)
Great post!
Abraco
Ray
Hi Ray! I wish framboesas were common here in Rio! I miss them [sigh]…
Ruibarbo eh? I thought you were pulling my leg there at first! I bet Rui Barbosa got teased at school… ;)
An English man was caught dry humping guava baskets at the fruit section of a Rio supermarket recently . . .
On a sidenote: jackfruit, lol.
Damn! I thought I’d managed to keep that scandal quiet. My guava peccadilloes will be my undoing… ;)
Yup, guavas can be either white (goiaba branca) or pink (vermelha) in Brazil. As for blueberries, I have a friend who grows them in the very south of Rio Grande do Sul. Last time she mentioned it, all her produce was sold to a single supermarket chain in Sao Paulo.
Maybe I should stop talking about guavas if I want to shed this reputation as a guavaphile, but I have to say that for all their delicious fragrance, they’re kind of disappointing when you actually eat them aren’t they? I’ve only ever had the pink ones though – I wonder if the white ones are better…
I’m not a big fan of guavas but I’d stick with the pink ones.
The mystery fruit is JAMBO!
I guess..
Nice work Julia! Maximum respect coming your way! :D