Mountain Fruits

Alright, while on the trail in Hawaii there are several natural growing fruits that us locals like to keep an eye out to snack on.

Gwaivi. A little red fruit that has a tangy taste. The older the fruit, the sweeter it gets.


Guava. We all had these before? I think. The green colored ones are under ripe and will be bitter in taste. The yellow ones are sweeter.


Mountain apple. I didn't have to go to far to get this one. My great grandma had a tree in the back of her yard.


Passion Fruit or what we call in Hawaii (Lilikoi). You don't eat the skin. Only the insides. Well that's the way I eat it anyways.

 

Yeah as a kid we would hike up in the mountains, and would never think of bringing food. There was always something around that was etable. Life was simpler back then. The only thing we worried about was getting back home before it got dark.

I assume you have eaten these fruits before under the name that you know them by. Those are the names that I've been told and used for years.

 

Is the Mountain Apple an actual apple, Josh? It really looks like an apple, but thicker on the tree that most apples, more like what we call a crab apple. Crab apples are usually smaller that a regular apple and much more sour that a full-size one. They are fine for making jams or apple pie, because you use sugar to sweeten it, but they are not taste when you just eat one. Even when they are ripe, crab apples taste like a green apple.

Last summer, I was out in the woods with my daughter (Robin the Explorer) and we found some wild plum trees. They are small for trees, and not bushy enough to be called a bush; and the wild plums are just a little larger than a cherry, but they taste delicious! We brought some home to eat, and also dug up a few of the smaller trees, and I have planted them in the yard; hopefully they will grow. Some of them are a pretty yellow color, and others are red and gold.

 

These little wild plums are a lot different from the large purple plums that are sold in the stores, @campforums. The cultivated plums are at least as big as a golf ball (usually even larger) whereas these wild ones are more like a large cherry in size, and grow thick on the tree. The flavor and texture is about the same as on the larger varieties of plums though. These are fully ripe, and they are the reddish-gold variety. The others are more of an orange gold color, but the size and taste is identical.

Most of the wild fruit that I have had (apples, pears, cherries, plums and grapes) are smaller than their cultivated counterparts, and the taste is usually nowhere near as sweet, although the plums are delicious! I have not had any more problems with wild fruit having worms or bugs than fruit grown in an orchard, and these plums certainly didn't have any bugs. I am hoping that they will produce a larger fruit when they are growing in my yard, since I will be able to keep them watered in the heat of summer.

 

Wow Josh, great information and pictures. Now if I am ever in that area I will know what to look for. I am interested in those mountain apples the most.... are they sweet or bitter? Is that their name or the name the locals call them, maybe they are known by another name? I have never seen them before and so I am very curious about them. I love apples.