I have mentioned here that I was planning a post about some of the various and unique foods that grow here in Brazil. I finally got around to it. There are more pictures on my Flickr page, if you want to see more.

The acerola is a fruit that is about the size and shape of a cherry. None of the ones I have eaten have been sweet. I have not eaten many, so I don't know if they are supposed to ripen more, or not.
They do have a rather pleasant bitter flavor, which, with a bit of sugar is very good. Typically these are served in the form of juice.

This very odd fruit (called Jackfruit in English) is about the size of a basketball, and is covered with short, spiny green things. They are not really sharp, as in cactus, but they are a little sharp. The edible part is around the seed, and has the consistency of garlic, or similar. Not much flavor here. In the lower center of the photo there is a seed with the meat on, and a seed without the meat.

The pitomba is also about the size of a cherry. However, the seed takes up such a large portion of the fruit area, that there is almost no fruit at all. Even so, there are many vendors on the streets who sell these, so they must be pretty popular. The outside of the fruit (the skin, or peel) is sort of like a leathery orange peel, but thinner, and not connected to the fruit like an orange peel is. The fruit itself gives kind of a dry feeling on the tongue, but is quite wet. I think it sort of recalls the flavor of lemon in a way, but not as strong by a long shot. This might be one you just have to try yourself, as I am having difficulty coming up with descriptors for it. I am open to suggestions in the comments (though, it would help if you have actually eaten this...).

Here is another fruit that has a difficult flavor to describe. It is also the only fruit of these that I have a strong distaste for (that said, I would rather eat this than panelada). The piqui [Portuguese] (good Scrabble word, by the way--if its in your dictionary) is eaten after being boiled. There is a thin coating of flour-like (in texture) meat on the seed, and this is what is cooked and eaten. The smell is very distinct and pungent, and reminds me of--well, it just reminds me of the first time I ate the fruit. One must scrape the meat off the seed with their teeth, and its kind of grainy and a bit flavorless to me, but my wife likes it, as do others around the house. If you get the opportunity to try it, do. I don't want to discourage anyone from trying new things just because I don't like them.

This is a fruit called bacuri. It is evidently a very good fruit to make juice out of. I don't remember its flavor, as this photo was taken almost (maybe over) a year ago.

Here is probably the oddest fruit I have ever seen, touched, or eaten. Cupuaçu (coo-poo-a-su). It grows in a nut-like enclosure about a foot, to 16 inches long, by about 6 inches wide--on trees, I am told. This first picture shows the removed fruit of one enclosure, as well as the inside of half of one of the nut-like enclosure (I was going to use nut-case, but did not like the connotations that went along with it.).

Update: This post has been revised and added to at my new blog, it can now be found  under the title "The Fruits of Brazil."