I happened to notice a pile of new mystery fruits today at Maria's fruit & vegetable stand, so I asked her about them. "Apple", she said. "Belizean apple." She said they were sweet with just a little sour taste, and that the skin was edible. What did I have to lose? She picked out a nice one for us, and we added it to our pile of baby bananas and limes.

When I got home, I started my usual googling to determine exactly what this lovely burgundy pear-shaped fruit actually was. Turns out, it is a Rose Apple, named because it tastes like rosewater. Cool! Rose Apples are very low in calories but high in Vitamins A and C, calcium, and niacin. What's not to love? At this point, I gave it a sniff, and it does have the aroma of old-fashioned roses -- you know, roses that actually have a fragrance.


The taste and texture resembled a pear doused in rosewater, with slightly finer flesh, not grainy the way a pear can sometimes be. It's nice, but like some of the other new tropical fruits we've tried since moving here, I am not sure I'd go out of my way to eat it plain.

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