If a menu here offers a fresco de guanábana, order it. The fruit is a lumpy green thing with soft spines that looks like a prop from a film, and the flesh inside is white, creamy, tart and sweet, like a fruit designed by committee and somehow perfect.
Where you’ll see it
Gardens, mostly. A small tree that fruits generously in the rainy months and is grown wherever people want the juice, which is everywhere.
What to know
The fruit is picked firm and ripens on the counter until it gives to the thumb. Scoop the white flesh, pull out the large black seeds, and blend with water or milk and a little sugar. The seeds should not be eaten. Health claims for the leaves and fruit circulate widely and are unproven; the case for the drink needs no help.
