Fruits in Brazil: Sapoti and Jenipapo

One of the most exciting aspects of Brazilian food is the wide range of little known fruit. From the moment I first crossed into Brazil from Colombia, I encountered strange fruits and berries that I had never seen or even heard of before. Words like Bacurí, Muricí and Cupuaçú jumbled about in my head after a visit to a market in Manaus. Although it’s not quite so easy to get hold of the exotic Amazonian fruits here in Rio, they do show up from time to time in the street markets and whenever I see something new, I try it.

I visit Rio’s street markets at least twice a week and there is almost always this one stall, run by a rather grumpy old guy, which has the weird items. A few days ago I visited the grumpy stall and picked up two fruits that are pretty interesting: Sapoti and Jenipapo.

Sapoti (aka Sapodilla)

For all I know, I have been walking past these Sapoti (sounds like ‘sappo-chee’) fruit for years without noticing them and you can hardly blame me can you? As fruit go, these dull brown, tennis-ball sized spheres don’t exactly jump out and say ‘eat me!’ do they?

Better known as Sapodilla or Níspero in their native range of Southern Mexico and Central America, Sapoti (Manilkara zapota) grow on large, evergreen trees. The ripe fruit are firm and when cut open release a delicious sweet fragrance.

The fruit’s flesh is a light brown-orange colour with that same grainy texture you get with pears. When ripe, the fruit is very sweet and has a flavour a bit like toffee or caramel; unripe fruit are hard and full of a substance called saponin which makes them really bitter.

Summary: All in all, this is a pretty tasty fruit. However, it is very sweet and Mrs Eat Rio suggested that she would like to try it with a squeeze of lime to balance out all that sugar. They say that sapoti had already reached Brazil by the time the European explorers arrived, but it was also later taken over to India and other parts of Asia where it is variously known as chikoo, sobeda and lamoot. Knowing how much of a sweet tooth Indians have, I can imagine it is very popular over there!

Jenipapo

Jenipapo (Genipa americana) is a strange fruit. A little smaller than a tennis ball, the fruit grow on a tree that is found throughout the Atlantic and Amazon forests. Whenever I’ve seen jenipapo here in Rio, the fruits have been brown and a bit saggy, rather like dried figs. They have a very strong fragrance, also quite similar to dried figs or overripe bananas.

I bought the jenipapo fruit in the photo above just before we jetted off on holiday and sadly didn’t have time to do much with them, but it seems that these pungent fruit are commonly made into jellies, compotes and liqueurs. They are said to be rich in calcium, vitamins B1, B2, B5, C and work as an appetite stimulant (not sure I’ll ever need an appetite stimulant!). When I saw them at the market this week, they were even more saggy and squishy than usual and didn’t look very appetising when I cut them open:

Past their best? Next time I find jenipapo looking a bit less brown and mushy, I’ll be trying to make them into a liqueur. If it turns out well, I’ll post the steps.

But jenipapo has another use. The word jenipapo itself derives from the indigenous Tupi language meaning ‘fruit that can be used to paint’ and that pretty much sums it up. Indigenous peoples across the Amazon region use jenipapo juice to paint their bodies. The seeds and juice are scooped out of the middle of a fresh, green fruit, mixed with water and boiled until the juice turns black. This black paint is then applied to the skin using brushes or thin sticks.

Once extracted, the jenipapo paint is a deep blue-black colour. Image source

Summary: Jenipapo has a strange flavour like a sweet, pungent, overripe fruit. It may be that it’s nicer when they’re less old and squishy, but going by the fruit that I’ve found here in Rio, I wouldn’t recommend eating it raw. As I mentioned above, the fruit can be steeped in alcohol to make a sweet liqueur – I’ll let you know if that works out well. A word of warning if you find some fresh jenipapo and feel like trying the skin-painting method: the dye is like henna – any markings will stay on your skin for 2 weeks or more!