Hi everybody. So, I have one today that's going to be
interesting, but probably difficult to deal with in a few different ways. This is-- oh
we're off to a good start-- this is
Crescentia
alata. Now,
it may look a little bit familiar, and that's because this is a close relative
to the calabash, which I reviewed back
in the Philippines. And
the thing with this, like why this is so tough, is actually really interesting. Way, way long ago,
there was an animal that would eat the seeds of this thing. And you know eating the seeds-- like actually like
masticating the seeds--
destroys the chance for the tree to
proliferate. So as a mechanism to protect against that,
evolutionarily, this grew a thick skin to it.
So now the fruit is still eaten-- there used to be like an
ancestor of the elephant that used to eat this thing-- and you know
it just like consumes it whole, and then poops out the seeds whole. And then it's fertilized, and it grows into a new tree.
Since that
ancestor of the elephant died, now that they're extinct, now these are actually still
propagated, but now by horses. Domestic horses
like these things, so these are still like going strong. The flowers of this tree are actually kind of
interesting, because they are one of those lovely
flowers that smell like rotting meat. And that's because these are pollinated by flies.
These were very popular with like pre-hispanic groups. I think the Aztecs would use this fruit.
So they cultivated these for a number of different things. One, the
shell itself can be dried out and then used to make like pots and
bowls and cups and stuff out of. The flesh inside here is used medicinally. It's used as like a cough remedy I think mostly.
I don't really see any signs of people actually eating this thing,
so that's gonna be a fun thing for me to try, because I don't think people actually eat it. And
the seeds inside this thing are the most useful thing. The seeds are collected and
used for a number of purposes. They've got a lot of protein and oil in them,
so the oil is used for a number of things if you press it out of the seeds. And the seeds can be like
roasted, made into flour, and it's commonly used to make like a kind of horchata, where they take this thing and
grind it up, mix it with like cinnamon and spices and milk, and it's supposed to be really, really good.
This is a dried-out one.
You can hear that fruit in there.
This is a common way of using this medicinally. What you do is, you dry out the fruit entirely.
You drill a hole in it. You fill it with tequila,
you cap it, and you let it kind of like infuse. And after it infuses, you pour out the liquid, which will turn all like
murky and gross, and
you drink that, and that's supposed to be like a cure for you know, just about everything.
That's not too bad.
Eww. Yeah, that is not pretty.
I don't know what to say.
If I could say something good about
this fruit and
what I'm about to do, it's
that
it smells good. It looks like a clod of dirt. It smells like, I don't know, like eggnog or something.
I guess this is actually bringing me
back a little bit to the woodapple. Woodapple smelled like eggnog. It looked like a clod of dirt also.
There was a cheesiness with the woodapple that this does not have. I don't even know like what to eat.
It's like very, like,
fibrous. You can see like all this
stuff in here.
Like, that's not going anywhere. It's like super stringy.
Ugh.
Oh, I am not having a good time.
Yeah.
This is like a thing of nightmares.
So there's the seed. It's a little heart-shaped guy.
It actually looks similar to the the calabash
seed. It's got the same shape, but it's black. Like it is questionable, like if this is edible. I'm not sure. It is edible
you know, to horses.
Horses seem to like it. Extinct elephants like it.
Humans, I don't know.
The texture of it is god-awful. It's the texture of soggy leaves.
The texture is terrible.
The flavor, is quite good. It's got like a nice sweetness to it. Um.
This feels so weird reviewing this. Um, you know, sweetness is maybe like
a 6 or 7 out of 10--
you know, if ten's a sugar cube. It's quite sweet. No, sourness. It's very mellow.
It does have a distinct vanilla,
caramel,
licorice
flavor to it.
So the seeds are not
terribly difficult to get out, which is nice. You just kind of squeeze this horrible pulp.
It looks terrible, but they're coming out relatively easily.
Okay, so I'm gonna try next one of the seeds-- just like raw, as it is.
The texture is like a little gritty when you eat it.
So I think these definitely need to be like prepared properly. They need to be dried out and
roasted, I think. But
yeah, it's fine. It ends up carrying a lot of that flavor that the pulp has.
Probably tastes a little bit like it itself, but it also has some residue on it. I know that this is black
seeds on a black
tray here, but I'm at an air B&B,
so this is all I've got. But you can see I got a lot of
seeds out of that thing. This is probably like, I don't know, like at least a cup.
I'm gonna spread it out on this thing and put it in the oven on very low heat,
just to see if I can dry it out a little bit. And
then I'm gonna raise the heat and see if I could roast it a little bit.
Yep, I'm gonna put it in at like 200 degrees and
see what happens.
All right, we're at 30 minutes. Let's see
how these guys are doing.
Now, they look a little darker. I think they're done. You know, I just put them in here to like literally like dry them out,
but
in the process they ended up getting roasted anyway. I think it's because this oven is kind of crappy.
I can see like already like a lot of marketability on these things, just because you can like
sell them as like "heart seeds".
You know, whether or not they taste good they are
quite adorable.
Those are good.
As
horrifying as this thing is from the outside, as horrifying as it is when you open it up and see all that black
sewage that's in there, it
smells good. The flesh, surprisingly, is not that bad. And the seeds:
these are the prize right here.
I can see why these are the thing that
people use this for, and why they make like drinks out of it and stuff like that.
It's like corn.
Very similar to like, it tastes like eating like a corn nut, like a sunflower seed as well.
It does taste like there's like some fat in there. It has a little extra something to it, and I think that is the
you know, the the kind of flavor that is in the pulp-- just like toned down.
It's a little like vanilla, a little
floral, a little like caramel,
a little bit like licorice. I can see how this would be like super good ground up and made into like a horchata kind of
drink. It would like have like a similar taste
that you would get from that, you know, using like rice, but
also like a little like extra fattiness to it,
a little extra nuttiness,
kind of like a little more of those like little
liquorice, vanilla, caramel kind of flavors mixed in there, too.
You know, honestly, I was terrified of this thing. I thought this was gonna taste terrible.
I thought like this is a medicinal thing. Some guy was selling this
along with like stuff for like witchcraft and
medicine and stuff like that. I'm like, okay, there's no, never have I gotten something from a medical person where I was like "Wow!
That's good!"
So,
in this case,
this one's good. I'm really excited to have gotten a chance to try this.
So, hopefully, I'll find some more things that are just as exciting in the future.
Wish me luck guys. All right. Bye-bye.
Hey, so at the end of this video, there's going to be a preview of next week's fruit,
so stay tuned for that. But, first: business!
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