Chirimoya: Fruta de Los Cielos

In my room, a chirimoya ripens

(cherimoya, en ingles).

What is a chirimoya, you ask?
Or maybe you don't ask, but I am going to answer anyway.

If you didn't ask, now's your chance to navigate to YouTube and watch pro-wrestling clips.

For everyone else, the chirimoya is a fruit native to the valleys of Chile, Bolovia, Peru, Ecuador, and Colombia.
And it is quite difficult to describe.
When Mark Twain tried his first chirimoya, he declared it "the most delicious fruit known to men."
He's not far off there.

First, the appearance.
I think the chirimoya looks like a big booger some alien hawked up.
It is very irregularly shaped.
Others maintain it is shaped like a human heart.
Only it's bigger.
And greener.
And knobbier.
And furrier.
And the inside is white, with an abundance of black seeds.

Second, the texture.
I feel like I am writing a romance novel here, but the flesh is velvety.
And like an avocado, it is ripe when squishy and green-black.

Now, the taste.
The chirimoya is very distinct.
Think melt-in-your-mouth-sweet with slight twinge of acidity.

It has been described as:
pear-like,
apple-like,
banana-like,
pineapple-like,
papaya-like,
strawberry-like,
mango-like,
and ice-cream-like.
And yet, it is none of the above.

But it is delicious.

However, I find partaking in this fruit of the heavens to be a little difficult.
Unlike a pear or an apple, the skin of the chirimoya ain't good for munchin'.
Also, the radial axis is tricky to spot, so equilateral-slicing is a crapshoot.
Meanwhile, the seeds seem to be randomly distributed throughout the fruit.
Oh yeah, and those seeds are poisonous if eaten.

But the labor is worth the fruit.

What an odd and glorious gift from the skies (whether sent from Heaven or from other benevolent extraterrestials)!