Wild pineapple, Bromelia pinguin
Also called Piñuela. Tastes exactly like pineapple but burns or itches my mouth a little bit, I think you put salt on it before you eat to help disparate the reaction. As a child in Placencia, I would eat this until my mouth was bleeding. Just have to take the “knife and fork” off...the ends....which on pineapples happen to be the “eye” that when people eat it, it itches the tongue. They mostly grow in like the river valley area near rivers.My grandmother used to make a atole of that.
My granpa used to harvest in the wild and granma used to make a sweet with them much like cocoyol over the fogon. Very acidic and will burn your mouth in the natural. It is a tenderizer so when it burns your lips it is actually breaking down protein.
Pinguin wine is very good!
Photographs by Kimo Jolly
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