I LOVE all the produce here in Costa Rica, especially the fruit. I often buy random things at the grocery store just to try them out. That’s how we learnt that we love Chayote, and now we use it in pretty much every meal!

But there is one fruit that has been rather illusive…the ever mysterious Guanabana.

During our first week in Tamarindo, I was choosing the fruit for my smoothie at Mandarina, and noticed this container of white stuff. I rocked a little “que es esto?” and she responded with Guanabana. Having no idea what she said, I figured why not, throw it in. Best decision ever! It made my smoothie so delicious!

From wikipedia

I went home, and Googled this strange fruit, and even watched a YouTube tutorial of how to cut one. Guanabana or Soursop, is this odd large prickly, looking green fruit, with white pulpy innards and large black seeds. Their wiki page described it has having flavours of banana, strawberry and coconut. There are also lots of articles about its potential cancer fighting powers. Needless to say the more I read the more intrigued I was.

The Farmers Market

I figured I would pick one up at the store the next day for us to try…but they didn’t have any.  So I hiked to the next store…and the next store, and the fruit stand, and the MegaSuper, and NO one in town sold them. When we got to Santa Teresa, and went to their health food store, I found a small container of some pre sliced pieces. I really wanted to find the whole fruit, but figured that would be fine. We were on our way to dinner, so I thought I would stop on the way back. When I returned, it was gone..and the didn’t have any more during our entire stay (trust me, I checked!).

Everything was so fresh!

I reached out to my blogger friend Maribel of Stroller Adventures, and she suggested a farmers market. Well, it wasn’t until this week in Playa Coco, that I actually found a one! Early one morning Whitney, and I trekked out to the little Farmers Market to see what they had.

The produce was amazing, we loaded up on fresh pico de gallo makings, pineapples, and all sorts of strange fruits. I glanced around for the hidden gem of guanabana, but alas, none to be found.

So many things I didn’t recognize!

As we went to check out, I was using my terrible Spanish to try and ask the women if the fruit we had chosen were good. Her eyes lit up, she said “uno momento” and she reached behind the counter. My heart jumped as she pulled out a GIGANTIC Guanabana. Seriously, this thing probably weighed 10 pounds. I would have paid anything, but when she said it would be 16 dollars, Whitney talked me out of it (Not even I could eat that much!). After explaining to cashier that it was to big, she darted in the back, and started rummaging through boxes, after a lengthy search she came out with a much more reasonable sized one. I was stoked!! She explained that it wasn’t ripe, so I would have to wait until tomorrow to eat it.

Our farmers market haul, with my Guanabana front and centre!

We lugged our prizes home, and I waited patiently for the 24 hours to pass so I could finally dig into my prize.

Was it delicious?

You’ll just have to wait and see…tomorrow on Hostels and Hot Rollers, the epic guanabana tasting of 2013.

Pura Vida!

Kate

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