Pineapple Guava (aka Heroin for Healthy People)

My friends who really know me understand that I fancy myself as some kind of amateur kitchen witch which explains why I was riding my bicycle home yesterday from Jacquelyn’s house with a large bag stuffed with eccentric little green globes. During play rehearsal in the backyard I had noticed a plethora of these strange green fruits on the ground and when she noticed me staring more at them then paying attention to my lines she decided to bag me up a bounty and send me home to experiment, mentioning something about how she thought they were called guanabanas and they might make a good jam.

After getting home and looking up guanabanas I immediately realized they weren’t guanas as those particular fruits are supposed to have black seeds and these were filled with only white pulp and transparent seeds. They also smelled strongly of candy and it took all I could muster not to chomp right into one without doing further research. The Cute Gardener thought I was crazy later when I touted my find to him on the phone, crazy for thinking that a little Internet research would satisfy me enough to allow me to eat as many of these as I ended up eating, but I am getting ahead of myself… After much research online and comparisons between at least thirty sites and youtube videos showing me how to eat these little suckers, I discovered they were pineapple guavas, growing on a common landscaping tree of Southern California. From the swarm of fruit flies that kept escaping my bag of them, I knew they must be sweet and finally took a chance and a bite.

This is one of the most magnificent fruits I have ever tasted; a beautiful bastard child of sweet and sour candy, kiwi, strawberry, and pineapple, all combined into a juicy, slightly grainy texture. I became so enthusiastically addicted upon first bite that I ended up foregoing dinner for five or six (or seven) of the things. Bloated on the couch, I told the Cute Gardener what I had done and he remarked, “How do you know it’s not like heroin?”

Well, it is, and obviously that remark didn’t sway me because this morning I cut more of them in half and scooped out the centers melon ball style to add to my usual super food breakfast. 

One half cup of organic vanilla yogurt

Innards of 3 pineapple guavas
1 teaspoon bee pollen

1 teaspoon chia powder

1 teaspoon acai powder

Swirl all together

Although they are so good straight up, I can also envision using their juice in margaritas, their pulp in smoothies and jams, and a variety of other things.

I may become one of those weird people on a bike who trawls the neighborhood alleyways, grocery bags stuffed into the pockets of my jeans, looking for trees overhanging from properties that might drop more of this delicacy around for me to collect like I do in the beginning of the summer with figs.