Custard Apple
(Annona reticulata)
The Custard-apple (Annona
reticulata), known in English
as bullock's heart or bull's heart,
is a species of Annona, native to the tropical New
World, preferring a low elevation, and a warm, humid
climate. It is a small deciduous or semi-evergreen
tree reaching 10 m tall. The leaves are alternate,
simple, oblong-lanceolate, 10-15 cm long and 5-10
cm broad. The flowers are produced in clusters, each
flower 2-3 cm across, with six yellow-green petals.
The fruit is variable in shape, ranging
from a symmetrical globose to heart shaped, oblong
or irregular. The size ranges from 7-12 cm. When ripe,
the fruit is brown or yellowish, with red highlights
and a varying degree of reticulation, depending on
variety. The flavor is sweet and pleasant, but inferior
to that of the cherimoya or sugar-apple. The latter
fruit is sometimes confused with this species. Read
more here.
The Custard Apple in Asia
from New World Foods, Old World Diet by Paul
Lunde, published in Aramco
World Magazine, May-June 1992.
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It is a favorite fruit in India, where it is known
as sitaphal, "the fruit of Sita," or, by
a borrowing from Arabic, as sharifa, "the noble."
The custard apple, Annona reticulata, is so integrated
into the Indian diet that it is the subject of legends,
paired with another of the Annonaceae, the sweetsop
or sugar apple (Annona squamosa), called "the
fruit of Rama," ramaphal . Nineteenth-century
travelers in India remarked that the custard apple
grew wild, abundantly, in the jungles of the Deccan.
The Carmelite Vicenzo Maria, whose book on the East
Indies was published in Rome in 1672, gives a good
description of the plant and its fruit, which he knew
by its Malabari name: "The plant of the Atta
in four or five years comes to its greatest size....
The fruit... under the rind is divided into so many
wedges, corresponding to the external compartments....
The pulp is very white, tender and delicate, and so
delicious that it unites to an agreeable sweetness
a most delightful fragrance like rose-water... and
if presented to one unacquainted with it he would
certainly take it for bla[nc]mange."
Custard apples and sweetsops grow in the Philippines,
Malaysia and China as well as India. The custard apple
is eaten with relish in Lebanon, where it is known
as the "Indian quince." In Andalusia, a
related fruit is the chirimoya , a Quechua Indian
name - for this fruit, like the custard apple and
the sweetsop, is of American origin. All three were
brought from the New World to the Far East in the
late 16th or early 17th centuries by two routes and
two nations: by the Portuguese westward around the
Cape of Good Hope and, after 1575, by the Spanish
from Acapulco via Manila.
Evidence for this double dissemination of the Annona
is the fact that one of its names in Mexico is até,
apparently the origin of the Tagalog and Malabar names,
and that in Malaysia and Indonesia it is sometimes
called nona , a recognizable version of the West Indian
- and Latin - name for the fruit.
In the 16th and 17th centuries a number of American
plants were thoroughly acclimatized in India and elsewhere
in the Far and Middle East. The exact lines of transmission
are usually unknown, though we know, for example;
that the Moghul emperors at first received their pineapples
through the Portuguese-controlled Indian ports. But
who brought the custard apple, the guava and the cashew
tree? By what route did they come, and to which ports?
All three now grow wild in India.
Australian
Custard Apple Grower's Association
Image souces: custard
apples growing; India
custard apple vendor; custard apple shoppers
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