Chysophyllum cainito (Caimito)

Chysophyllum cainito also called caimito, start apple, milk fruit and aguay comes in three varieties: purple, greenish-brown and yellow. Like the sapote and the gaunabana, the caimito is a native Caribbean fruit that hasn't fallen far from the tree: caimitos are grown through the tropics, but rarely exported to temperate zones.

C. cainito is a member of the Sapotaceae family which also includes P. sapota (sapote), and Vitellaria paradoxa (from which Shea butter is derived) along with around 800 other species of tropical, evergreen trees. It is noted for its anti-oxidant properties. Its bark and leaves have medicinal properties as a stimulant and for treating diabetes and rheumatism. Derek Walcott, the Saint Lucian poet who won the Nobel prize for literature in 1992, even titled his 1979 collection poems for the fruit: The Star Apple Kingdom.

All this as a round-about way of saying that I wished I liked caimito more.

I may have been biased by white ooze near the stem hole. Caimito skin, which is inedible, is rich in latex that bleeds from incisions on the fruit, like milkweed or a broken dandelion stem. It is also possible that I selected an over-ripe or under-ripe fruit. And while the caimito has a pleasant, sweet flavor, I found it lacking in depth. Moreover, it also left my mouth feeling as though I'd eaten a spoon full of paste. (Too much latex?)

With apologies to Derek Walcott, this is one fruit that I probably won't be searching out in the future.