Try Some Of These Bizarre Fruits At Your Rosh Hashana Table

Every Rosh Hashana, families gather at two festive evening meals, replete with round challah, apples and honey and more. While apples and honey are the beloved simanim (signs) of the first night of Rosh Hashana, along with dates, fish, leeks, carrots, squash along with different additional traditions for different families, the second night brings a shecheyanu blessing over a new fruit. While Dragonfruit, Starfruit, Lychees and Persimmon are commonly eaten, the fruits below are often harder to find. Below, please find some handy links and some brief introductions to some fruits you may not have yet tried at your Rosh Hashana table. Screenshots courtesy of Unilad.

Mangosteen

A sweet, juicy and tangy tropical fruit, the inner white flesh is the part that is edible, as the burgundy brown shell is peeled away.

Mamey Sapote

With its football shape and its large inner seed, the salmon colored flesh of the fruit has an almond-like flavor. They can weigh up to 5 pounds.

Finger Limes

Also known as Citrus Caviar, the pulp of this fruit is easy to separate and garnish with. Try it on fish or over a salad.

Custard Apple

While the name can make a person think that this fruit would look and taste like apple custard, it isn’t either. Also known as Cherimoya, the creamy insides vary in color from red to white. The large seeds are great to germinate and plant your own tree.

Black Sapote

Known as the “Chocolate Pudding Fruit” it tastes more like a pumpkin. Like its relative the persimmon, it grows heartiest in tropical climates and its trees can reach 40 feet in height.

Monstera Deliciosa Fruit

These common household tropical plants (also known as Swiss Cheese Plants) contain edible fruits also known as Cerimans. With a flavor profile that combines banana, pineapple & mango, they are high in potassium & vitamin C.

Rollinia

Rollinia Deliciosa is a large yellow fruit with a bumpy surface and soft spines. Like the name, it tastes delicious, and is described as a creamy lemon sherbet or a lemon meringue pie.

Eggfruit

Eggfruit is dense like a sweet potato and tastes like cake.

Hidden Rose Apple

This apple is pinkish red on the inside and is sweet and tart in flavor. Its flavor is kind of like  pink lemonade while its texture is firm and crunchy. This exotic apple was discovered in the 1960s at a farm in Oregon when the farmer bit into an apple from a mature tree and found it was pinkish red on the inside. The scions from tree were then grafted onto other trees.

Gac Fruit

Gac is a type of perennial melon grown throughout Southeast Asia and Australia. It has a vivid orange-reddish color due to its rich content of beta-carotene and lycopene. It has a mild taste and dense flesh.

If you found this content meaningful and want to help further our mission through our Keter, Makom, and Tikun branches, please consider becoming a Change Maker today.