FRUITS, Tropical. Many tropical fruits are well known in the colder zones. Some of them are even cultivated in subtropical climates, in northern greenhouses, or as annuals where ever summer-heat is sufficiently torrid; as, for instance, • okra, tomatoes, melons, egg-plants, peppers and peanuts. Others, like the pome granate, lime, orange and related citrus fruits, banana, pineapple, fig, date, coconut, alligator pear, litchi, coffee- and cocoa-beans and vari ous familiar nuts, as Brazilnuts, are imported in a fresh or dried condition. Cooled ships are arranged for their transportation, especially for that of the fast-ripening banana. But most of the soft fruits of the tropics either will not survive long journeys, or will not pay for the trouble.
They form, however, an important part of the food of the natives in the Equatorial Zone who raise them in tiny scattered orchards or in their dooryards, or pluck them from wild groves. Many of these fruits, like the coconut and tamarind, have been carried from port to port and have been cultivated and even natural ized in so many tropical countries that their place of origin is a matter of dispute. Some of them are used as vegetables as in the case of the familiar tomato, egg-plant and okra. In the Philippines sequidillas (Psophocarpus tetra gonolobus) are the tender angular pods of a leguminous vine, which are boiled, having an asparagus-like flavor. The pear-shaped fruits of a cucurbitous vine which is trained on arbors and is white or green, rugged of rind and single-stoned, is known as the chayote, or cho-cho (Sechium edule), and is boiled, stuffed and baked like squash, which it much resembles in taste and consistency. Africa contributes the akee (Blighia sapida), a brilliant vermilion hued fruit, within which are shining black seeds perched on cream-colored fleshy arils which are cooked, generally with salt fish, and have the appearance and taste of scrambled egg yolks. If eaten before the fruit has opened of itself, however, Jamaicans claim, the akee is a •swift and deadly poison. The heavy, round compound breadfruit (Artocarpus incisa), too, is baked, or boiled, or even dried and converted into flour. It is an utterly tasteless vegetable, and for this reason can be used as frequently as a potato. Its seeds are also boiled for food.
The sweeping from the trees of this dooryard fruit is one of the tragic results of a West Indian hurricane, since it destroys thus one of the food staples of the peasantry, having been brought to them from the Asiatic Archipelago. Its close relative, the jack-fruit (Artocarpus integrifolia), is larger, and so heavy that it is borne on trunk and limbs of the trees instead of at the tips of the branches. Green bananas, or plantains (Musa sp.), are also served as a vegetable, often being sliced and fried, and having a pleasant subacid taste.
Among the most prized tropical fruits are the thick-skinned mangosteen (Garcinia Man gostana); the little, round, brown sapodillas (Achras Sapota), in the West Indies called naseberries, evidently a contraction of an earlier title uNispera.a They are cut into hemispheres, so that the soft interior, not unlike a baked pear in flavor, may be scooped out. The East Indian durian (Durio Zibethinus), whose oval fruit is defended by spines which have been said to flay a man's face if struck by the fall ing fruit, and by a very offensive odor, is a favorite dessert with those who can forget the smell of the otherwise delicious pulp.
Other pulpy fruits are the little fragrant rose-apple good for jellies and dessert (Eugenia Jambos); and its relative, the Malay apple (Eugenia malaccensis); fruits borne on small anonaceous trees, which include the sweetsop (Anona squamosa) that remotely, resembles a young pine-cone when ripe having greenish polygonal knobs rising from the ivory-tinted rind. It is readily torn apart in the hands dis closing slender black seeds enveloped in sugary pulp. The soursop (Anona muricata) is a curious shapeless green bag armed with weak prickles, enclosing crowded carpels, the seeds immersed in envelopes much like cotton wadding to the tongue, but filled with juicy pulp. Rather musky and tart in flavor, it is a favorite cool dessert served as a custard with cream, or as a sherbet. The cherimoyer (Anona Cherimolia) and custard apple, the latter also known as bullock's heart from its shape and size (Anona reticulata), belong to the same family and are not dissimilar.