Bizarre Foods w/ Jen and Pat

As I won't be in Australia much longer, Jen and I have decided to get a bit of culture. What better way to immerse yourself in a new country than by eating all of its weirdest, fringe fruits? So we headed off to Rusty's Market, an open-air produce market in downtown Cairns. We were inspired by the king of bizarre foods, Andrew Zimmern, who went to the same market and ate many of the same fruits.

We started off with a sapodilla, a brown fruit that looks kind of like a kiwi. It tasted a bit like caramel, but we weren't a fan of the odd, grainy texture. Would probably be good as a dessert if it was cold and eaten with some ice cream.


Next was the passion fruit. Not quite as weird as the others, but not something you often find at Shaws. Very tart and very slimy. The texture was sort of like slurping melted tapioca pudding with crunchy seeds. Two thumbs up from Pat, two thumbs down from Jen (she prefers her passion fruit in ice cream or lemonade, not straight-up).


Then came the star apple, which neither tasted nor looked like an apple and had no discernible star? Soupy and milky, faintly sweet. Sort of like cutting open a fruit and finding a sloppy, purple yogurt inside. I thought it tasted sort of milky, Jen thought it tasted like vomit. Thumbs down all around, but certainly the strangest of the fruits. Extra points for the weirdness factor.

Last, but not least, was the black sapote. We were fairly excited to eat this fruit, because it's other name is the Chocolate Pudding Fruit. How great would that be?


Inside, the fruit was dark brown - a promising start! The flesh was soft, easily spooned, and a bit dry. The texture - a bit like a boiled sweet potato. Kind of grainy, a bit dry. And the flavor? Well, hate to let everyone down, but it really had almost no taste. Try as we might, neither of us could taste the chocolate we'd been promised. Maybe we got a bad one!