Smashed

It is raining just about every afternoon in Miami, and the sugar apples can't take it any more... So they one after another give up the ghost and make the big jump like this one here. In this drama, I can tell you a few stories... First of all, like the story of the two Rambutans, this variety of sugar apple (Annona squamosa) exists in two sub-types: a desirable and a less desirable one. This one is the ugly duckling type. The difference is in the firmness of the edible pulp. The fruit is less desirable when its pulp is very loosely bound together. The seeds are large and the pulp around them is paper thin so this type is not well received by the consumers. In fact, this type is not commercially viable. When the flesh is tightly bound internally, the seeds are much smaller and the fruits are in great demand.

During rainy days, the fruits split easily while ripening on the tree and once there is a crack anywhere, you can trust that zillion of tiny little creatures whose name is unknown to me invade the fruit to claim it as their territory. You can't see them in this photo, but there is a large colony of such individuals in the exposed flesh of this splattered fruit. The bottom line is the fruit does not entirely go to waste.

If you want to eat this fruit, you must know when it should be picked from the tree and let it ripen indoor. Only then you can be sure that the pulp you digest does not contain countless little tenants that may be very mad that you ate them.