Try It: Passion Fruit
Before picking out my little p-fruit friend, though, I did some on-the-fly research. Standing in front of the strange fruit table, most likely in the way of many other WF shoppers, I whipped out my iPhone and googled “how to pick a passion fruit”. The Internet experts advised that I choose one that was slightly wrinkled/dimpled, but not dry. One that seemed light in weight for its size. One that smelled fragrant and fruity. With this many criteria, I began to get worried that I wouldn’t make the right choice. I decided to play it safe and pick one that was underripe and totally smooth on the outside, allowing it a comfortable place on my counter to ripen and wrinkle up.
A few days later, it was on. With a sharp knife, I cut the fruit in half and dug in with a spoon. Those yellowy seeds you see above are the edible part of the fruit. The outer shell is hard and bitter and not for human consumption. As far as flavor and texture go, this passion fruit really threw my mouth for a loop. The yellow gel (I’m refraining from calling this mucus for obvious reasons) that surrounds these seeds is, as you might expect, quite slimy. The seeds themselves have a thin, crunchy shell that burst with flavor when you bite into them. The overall flavor is sweet, tart, and citrusy. I was reminded of an all natural sweet tart. Nutritionally, the passion fruit is on point. They have significant levels of beta carotene (which is then converted to vitamin A), vitamin C, fiber, potassium and iron.
All in all, the passion fruit was enjoyable edible adventure, but probably not one I need to indulge in regularly. Are you passionate about passion fruit? Did my use of the word mucus totally turn you off? Leave a comment!
