The biggest of all fruit borne on a tree is the mighty jackfruit: some fruits grow to 30kg or more, with each tree able to produce 100 to 200 fruit a year! A native to South India (Artocarpus Heterophyllus), it’s a relative to the fig, mulberry and breadfruit. This is quite an incredible fruit, known as a multiple fruit which is made up of hundreds of thousands of individual flowers - it's the fleshy petals known as 'avrils' that you eat, and the seeds.
So the question is what do you do with a 30kg fruit? There are heaps of options and ways of eating this giant of a fruit. First, when the fruit is unripe or green, it is used widely throughout Asia in curries, as the flesh has a meat-like consistency. When staying at Wildwood it is great to pop down to Mason's Café for a delicious BBQ pulled jackfruit burger.... it's a vegan’s dream! When the fruit is ripe the flavour is vaguely similar to a sweet bubblegum/mango/banana. Here at Cape Trib Exotic Fruit farm we like to dry the sweet flesh to make a healthy snack that lasts for ages. Or make a jackfruit honey that is great for baking or pancakes. The seeds can also be boiled and roasted and taste great, a bit like roasted chestnuts.
Davidson Plum
Here at Cape Trib Exotic Fruit Farm, we love to grow fruits from all over the world. But it is extra special to grow a native fruit from our part of the world: the Davidson Plum, that is also called the Ooray. There are 3 species in this genus and we grow the Davidsonia pruriens.
Having been a foraged fruit by the traditional owners of the Daintree area, the Kuku Yalanji, it is now a widely sought-after bush food that chefs from all over Australia are turning into jams, sauces, chutneys and wines. The plum itself is a rich purple/blue colour with a beautiful reddish/ pink flesh. The flavour is very sour, but that is why it works so well when made into jams etc.
These trees are native to the jungle that surrounds Wildwood and once you start to recognise the tree you will spot a few on walks through the jungle. We harvest the fruits when they have fallen on the ground as long as the cockatoos stick to their side of the bargain to not to eat them all before they are ripe!
Rollinia
It's hard to know where to start with one of our favourites at Cape Trib Exotic Fruit Farm, it's the one, the only Rollinia Deliciosa… the name says it all! The large yellow fruit has soft spines with a creamy white flesh with black seeds, and it truly is a taste sensation, with the fruit tasting of creamy lemon sherbet and lemon meringue pie.
The best way to eat it is with a spoon, or as we like to do, just dive in face first and worry about the mess later!
The large yellow fruit has a bumpy surface and soft spines. The Rollinia is in the custard-apple family, Annonaceae, that is native to tropical South America. We have 8 of these amazing trees that can grow to 15 meters and can produce fruit from seed within 3 years. Most years we will feast on Rollina over a 4 to 5 month period. The fruit is very delicate and only has a short shelf life of a week or so. Therefore to try this delectable fruit you will have to come and visit us as it does not travel well!
Star Apple recipes
We’ve used our wonderful Cape Trib star apples in a few different recipes including jam and cakes, but thank you to Grace Van Berkum for providing us with one of our favourite recipes yet - star apples smoothie. When our star apples ripen they arrive in their hundreds, so this is the perfect way to use them - happy blending ;-)
Ingredients:
1-2 star fruits (without skin and pits)
1 tbsp tahini
Handful unsweetened, shredded coconut
Raw honey to taste
Pinch of ground cinnamon
Pinch of ground cardamom
2-3 cups water or unsweetened coconut milk
1 cup ice
Method:
Blend until creamy and smooth. It will come out a beautiful shade of purple. Sprinkle with cinnamon and cardamon.
Star Apple
Our beautiful big star apple trees are heavy in fruit at the moment, so we’ve decided to celebrate them and make them our fruit of the fortnight! At Cape Trib Exotic Fruit Farm we grow 2 varieties, the purple and green. Both varieties start life green, then the purple variety turns deep purple when ripe, whilst green star apples keep a light golden/green skin.
The taste is delicious! It has a sweet, soft flesh which has a slight floral flavour - cut through the middle and the seeds are in the shape of a star. However beware of the latex that lurks under the skin, it's super sticky and a bit bitter (best to eat it with a spoon!).
The star apple's scientific name is Chrysophyllum Cainito which is a tropical tree of the Sapotaceae family, native to the West Indies. It is now grown throughout the tropics, including Southeast Asia and Australia. The tree is fast growing and can grow to 20 meters in height with a large canopy, perfect for shading under on a hot sunny rainforest day ;-)
Clare@capetribexoticfruitfarm
Mangosteen harvest
We’ve had a busy and exciting few months celebrating our latest mangosteen harvest, with over 70,000 fruit handpicked, hand polished, lovingly packed and sent off to the markets. They went down a storm in Brisbane and Sydney and we sold out within hours of them arriving at the markets. Our guests loved sampling them, as did most of the visitors to Cape Trib in May and June. We even had a few guests keen to roll up their sleeves and get stuck in to picking.
We had a wonderful team of WWOOFERs who made this years harvest possible and it was fantastic to have people from across the globe come together to make it such a success - volunteers from Finland, South Korea, the UK as well as several Aussies came to experience life in the rainforest at Cape Trib. If you’d like to register your interest to be part of our next harvest please email Liz at info@wildwoodcapetrib.com.au
Matisia
The fruit of the week is the MATISIA!
Matisia (Matisia cordata) which is also called Chupa-Chupa is native to the foothills of the Andes, and is common throughout parts of Brazil, Venezuela, and Colombia. The fruit is round with a greenish leathery skin and sweet orange-yellow pulp which is quite high in fibre. Some people say it tastes a bit like rock melon! It is usually eaten straight out of hand but delicious in juices too!
Photo by Diana Scalfati
At Wildwood it's easy to find beauty even on rainy days.
Photo by Diana Scalfati
When time stops
Wildwood accommodations are set on the Cape Trib Exotic Fruit Farm in the Daintree Rainforest, very close to the Ocean and the Great Barrier Reef. As a starting point it doesn’t seem so bad does it? It’s actually even better than you think! As a guest here you get to enjoy the fun activities and excursions that Cape Tribulation and the rest of the area have to offer, but what is really incredible for me is the time spent on the property. It’s the perfect environment to relax, eat juicy exotic fruit whilst reading a book and most of all get creative!
Doesn’t matter if it’s pouring down with rain or the strong Australian sun is shining, sitting on the veranda with no internet connection, being encapsulated in the rainforest, brings you back to when you were a child and all you had was pen an paper and what you could find in your backyard.
A few of the recent guests have left us some beautiful art as a testimony of that! This one was made with pieces found on the ground around the orchard, some black beans, black bean pods, quandongs, leaves, tree bark and much more to create an incredibly detailed visual dish filled with texture and color, which represents perfectly the vibrant rainforest! Thank you Avrille and Hayden, we absolutely loved it!
Photo by Diana Scalfati, Art by Avrille.
Abiu
Have you ever heard of the Abiu?
It's scientific name is Pouteria caimito and it's originally from South America. Its fruits shape varies from round to oval with a point. When ripe, it has smooth bright yellow skin and has one to four ovate seeds. The inside of the fruit is translucent and white. It has a creamy and jelly-like texture. The fruit has a sweet, mild taste which may have a hint of pineapple but is best described as reminiscent of caramel flan. It is often used in ice cream or eaten out of hand. YUM!
Every week we are going to be writing about one of the incredible fruits you can find here at Cape Trib Exotic Fruit Farm / Wildwood, so keep your eyes peeled!
Photo by Diana Scalfati