Hello everybody, so today i'm going to talk about a fruit that is
Not that uncommon. I'm sure you've probably seen this or tried this yourself
But uh, what i'm going to do today is a little bit different i'm going to try different
levels of ripeness of this fruit
So it'll give a little bit of a different experience than just going to the store and buying one, and I was given this
Opportunity by Kimberly and Michael. So Kimberly and Michael, thank you so much for sending this to me.
This is gonna be a fun one to try so i've gotten a lot of criticism over my pronunciation
of certain fruit names
So, uh for this one, I really made sure to get this right. I watched some pronunciation videos on this one I can say without
A doubt. This is pronounced
carambola
Carambola
Also known as stairfront
Although I have never had
Carambola before on this channel. I have had a relative of it a different species known as the bilimbing
The bilimbing is something that is used in southeast asian cooking
it's used as a souring agent. This fruit by the way does also come from southeast Asia, but this is usually used as
a eating out of hand fruit
Although there are I think some sour varieties of it that can be used in a similar way to the bilimbing,
the tartness in
Sour varieties of this and the bilimbing i've read can actually be used to take uh rust off metal
That's how powerful it is and bilimbing is like getting kicked in the teeth. It's a very strong sourness
i'm curious if eating an unripe
Variety of the star fruit is going to have like a similar kind of sourness to it rather than the sweetness that you would expect.
One thing about carambola that is kind of interesting is that
this
Is something you do not want to eat
If you have any kind of kidney disease. It can cause a whole slew of problems if you have kidney problems can even kill you,
If you're not careful, if you have too much of this thing. So if you have kidney troubles guys, don't eat this thing
It's got a toxin in it called caromboxin
And that will mess you up. Star fruit also can interfere with some medications
So if you're on a medication and your doctor told you not to eat grapefruit juice
That's because a certain compound that is in grapefruits that can interfere
With uh, some medications. So, uh star fruit also has that compound. So if you eat star fruit, it's also a problem.
So be careful with that. I've got three levels of star fruit that i'm going to try.
This is an unripe one.
When I got this in the mail from kimberly and michael it was completely green
but I left it on my counter for a day and
It turned
Like half yellow so it's maybe not perfectly unripe, but it does, it is much more unripe than the other two that I have
Uh, then I had one that is very ripe. Now. This was allowed to ripen on the tree
all the way yellow and beyond so this actually has a
Brown blush to it. It's not brown like it's gone bad
It just has like brown speckles on it because it is matured. I think when you get it from a supermarket
It's actually picked green and then allowed to ripen at room temperature. So it normally doesn't get to this point
So this is uh, probably even more interesting than trying
The green one is trying one that has ripened on the tree
And finally, I got a store-bought one and this one i'm guessing was picked green and then allowed to ripen
This one is a little bit brown around the edges as a lot of them
As supermarkets tend to be because they get knocked around a bit.
So i'm going to try this as kind of a control to see how this tastes compared to the other two.
These are very likely a different cultivar than this, this I know is the Kari
Cultivar, maybe it's Kari cultivar.
This um, supermarket cultivar. I have no idea what this is. So let's try the normal supermarket variety first
mmm
Even though I got it from the supermarket, and It looks like it's been hit by a truck,
Still tastes really good. Sweetness on that
Is more than an apple? It's probably a six out of ten.
the tartness on that is um...
Maybe a four out of ten.
It's around the tartness of an orange. Probably a little bit less.
So, um, yeah, that's good. The flavor of the carambola is a little bit difficult to describe,
It is a little bit like grape
But not really
It's a little bit like oranges
Or like another type of like mild citrus maybe a little like pomelo or something. Uh, but not really
And it's got a little bit more like something like aromatic in there like, um, like vanilla
So it has like qualities of those three things
but each one of those qualities is like a little off so it's not like any one of those things if you're going to take
orange juice vanilla
and
Uh grape juice and mix it together. It would not taste like the carambola
but
it would be similar next i'm going to try the
very ripe
carambola
And kimberly and Michael said that this variety is a little bit
Milder than the supermarket type, so i'm expecting this to be kind of a little less flavorful than the one that I just had
But let's see how it's different
Oh, yeah, you know those three qualities I gave you
The orange is less,
The vanilla is more, the grape is about the same.
But also has a little bit of a, like a spice to it, a little bit like cinnamony.
Yeah, it's good. It is milder, the flavor is milder and it's also different it's not as sour.
I'd give it a two out of ten (sourness)
Sweetness is um,
About i'd say it's about the same. It's really juicy
But
it doesn't have as
Much of a crisp to it like the supermarket kind has a little bit of a crisp to it.
This one is more um, succulent kind of like melts in your mouth when you eat it.
Not soft really but kind of like dissipates in a different way
Yeah, that's good
And finally, let's try the unripe one
The extra ripe one and the unripe one are like night and day
This has more in common with the supermarket variety.
Because it has more of that grape taste it's a little bit of that orange taste and that vanilla taste
So it tastes similar to the supermarket variety
However, it is more sour. I'd say it's a five out of ten. It's got a little bit of like a grassiness to it
But not really in a negative way. It's like a little little green tasting.
and um the sweetness,
I'd say it's like a two out of,
out of ten on sweetness. All three of these are
Good, they all taste nice. Uh the very ripe one, the very
Unripe one, and the kind of middle of robe supermarket variety. I wouldn't prefer one over the other either I can see just like having
These in a fruit basket just like eating them, you know randomly and each time getting a different flavor
That is um equally good. So I think that's about it
so once again
Thank you so much. Kimberly, and Michael for sending this to me and i'll see you all next time, bye-bye
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