Sugar Apple (Sweetsop)
(Annona squamosa)
Image
source
Annona squamosa (Sugar-apple, Sweetsop)
is a species of Annona native to the tropical Americas.
Its exact native range is unknown due to extensive
cultivation, but thought to be in the Caribbean; the
species was described from Jamaica.
It is a semi-evergreen shrub or small
tree reaching 6-8 m tall. The leaves are alternate,
simple, oblong-lanceolate, 5-17 cm long and 2-5 cm
broad. The flowers are produced in clusters of 3-4,
each flower 1.5-3 cm across, with six petals, yellow-green
spotted purple at the base.
The fruit is usually round or oval,
slightly pine cone-like, 6-10 cm diameter and weighing
100-230 g, with a scaly or lumpy skin. The fruit flesh
is edible, white to light yellow, and resembles and
tastes like custard. The seeds are scattered through
the fruit flesh; they are blackish-brown, 12-18 mm
long, and hard and shiny. (source)
The ripe sugar apple is usually broken
open and the flesh segments enjoyed while the hard
seeds are separated in the mouth and spat out. It
is so luscious that it is well worth the trouble.
In Malaysia, the flesh is pressed through a sieve
to eliminate the seeds and is then added to ice cream
or blended with milk to make a cool beverage. It is
never cooked. (source)
The Custard Apple (Sugar
Apple) in Asia from New World Foods,
Old World Diet by Paul Lunde, published in Aramco
World Magazine, May-June 1992.
 |
 |
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: India
custard apple vendor; custard apple shoppers
Home
Back
to Exhibits |
