Alien Fruit

One day at the Cuso office a bowl was placed on the table which had an unidentified but innocuous looking fruit in it. When asked what it was, we were told it was a ‘grenadilla’.

It didn’t start to get weird until we tried to eat it. After we asked about the process, Fabiola went to grab a spoon and a plate. Oddly it was the handle of the spoon that was bashed against the grenadilla, which made the peel, which looked soft, crack and fall away in firm chunks revealing a second soft skin on the inside resembling a pouch.

When you puncture the inner sack, that’s when you are treated to the sight of lots of small rubbery tentacles on the inside of the pouch, and what appears to be a large number of slimy fish eggs.

Fortunately, the tentacles don’t wriggle, and the fruit is delicious if a bit odd on the tongue. It tastes similar to a less tart passion fruit, so we shared the first one and then I politely waited for a gap in the proceedings an hour later to gobble down a second one. It was a fun alien fruit experience and I think you can probably tell that Christina was enjoying every bit of it.