A Bit of Black Sapote…

There are two vacant lots a few houses down from mine. Currently, they serve little purpose other than a place to play ball, a cut-through to the alley and a place where we left our leftover Halloween pumpkin for the local wildlife to feast upon…until the other day when my husband and son arrived home with a very special find from a tree on-site. As green as a lime, as smooth as an apple and the size of an orange, it was clearly unripe, but I wasn’t sure of what exactly it was. Its ovoid shape and stem had the unique hallmarks of a persimmon; I was fairly certain that they had stumbled upon a Hachiya persimmon tree. Upon further research, we found that this was a black sapote—cousin of the persimmon—but very different, so much so that its nickname is the chocolate pudding fruit.

Much like the Hachiya persimmon, there are plenty of wrong times to eat this fruit and only one right time. If it is too under ripe, the interior of the sapote is brown and fibrous, bitter, dry and unpalatable. Left a bit longer until the flesh darkens and feels nearly as malleable as kinetic sand in the hand, one is rewarded with a deep chocolatey brown, glossy, smooth texture that scoops like pudding. While it tastes nothing like chocolate, it does have a very unique, subtle flavor that begs you to keep eating—a challenge to try and identify what in fact it does taste like. It took devouring three sapotes before detecting the flavors of starchy, unripe banana and a hint of pumpkin—with a texture smooth as an overly ripe banana. Simply put, a black sapote tastes like a black sapote—nothing else really compares.

The fruit continues to ripen off of the tree, so it’s best to pick them before they are too squishy. Some recipes I’ve found online include incorporating them into bread and brownie recipes, but I like them scooped straight out of their edible, papery skin.

Much like avocados and Hachiya persimmons, awaiting the peak of perfection of a black sapote requires restraint and fortitude, mixed with close observation that resembles babysitting. Each day we check in, handle the fruit by giving a little squeeze here and there and wait, until at last, our patience is rewarded with one of the most interesting and texturally-unique fruits available.