What’s the best fruit?
Currently, I am going with Asian Pears.
About The Author
BooMan
Martin Longman a contributing editor at the Washington Monthly. He is also the founder of Booman Tribune and Progress Pond. He has a degree in philosophy from Western Michigan University.
This is a settled question.
Watermelon.
So true.
Then canary melon at #2, with the banana being the most underrated of the modern age at #3.
The staple of bananas is the Cavendish, and all of them are a clone of one plant. It is being attacked by a fungus and within years will disappear. That is when everyone will realize that the Cavendish banana was probably #1. When it’s gone.
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The Cavendish banana was adopted as the standard because of its long shelf. In flavor it’s mediocre at best. There are over 1,000 varieties of bananas, very few of which are imported into the US or Europe. Sometimes we get red bananas, sometimes finger bananas. I find both of these much more flavorful than the Cavendish, with a firmer texture.
I have a dwarf cavendish in my yard. The ripe bananas are fantastic but they come 50 in a bunch, all riipening within a few days of each other.
That must be nice. Once again it proves what a number of people on the thread have been saying: it’s not so much what kind of fruit, it’s the quality and freshness of it.
I also grew dwarf cavendish for awhile. They were great, and more are going in soon. But yes, you have none, and then suddenly you have too many.
But that is how it goes with most fruits you grow yourself. Avocados last on the tree forever, and citrus for a long time. But most everything else you end up with too many.
My favorite fruit that I’ve grown is the green gage plum. Everyone plants the Sante Rosa because the green gage (like most European plums) is hard to grow around here. But the green gage is better. I once watched a flock of parrots wipe a tree of green gage out in two mornings. In Southern California!
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I may have seen that flock. There’s a kumquat tree at the end of the block that they like to destroy every year when the fruit are ripe. They haven’t discovered my trees yet, fortunately.
Pineapple.
Pineapple.
Pineapple.
Pineapple.
Pineapple.
Pineapple.
Best from what perspective?
Healthiest?
Best tasting?
Most attractive?
Personally, my tastes change from time to time, but I just tried a new type of apple I got at a farmer’s market in Ithaca, NY which absolutely stunned me, it was so good. Called Snapdragon. Never heard of it before.
Never heard of a snapdragon apple. You sent me googling…
A new New York apple characterized by “monster crunch.” One of its parents is the Honeycrisp, and you’ll love the spicy/sweet flavor. Along with RubyFrost®, SnapDragon is one of two exciting new apples that were 10 years in the making and developed by Cornell University’s apple breeding program.
PROFILE
Extra sweet and juicy
Crispy texture
BEST USES
Excellent eating
Good for salads, recipes, and kids lunches
SPECIAL HINT
Because it was first introduced to consumers in 2013, SnapDragon is not expected to be in abundant supply until 2015. For now, buy this great new apple when you first see it in early fall at an orchard, farm market, or food store.
http://www.nyapplecountry.com/varieties/25-snapdragon-new
Both my wife and I were amazed at the taste.
Thank goodness Snapdragon is a memorable name for an apple. I will definitely pick some up if they make their way to Illinois.
I miss the apples of upstate NY!
(…but socal more than makes up with other produce. I have a tangerine tree in back that has fruit to die for)
Persimmons!
Vine-ripened tomatoes, no contest. No garden produce beats their flavor. (Sweetness is over-rated!)
braeburn apples. fact.
Dude, braeburn isn’t even the best apple.
yeah sure. your taste buds, like your opinion, must be correct. fact.
I would take a good peach over a brownie any day of the week. But it has to be a good peach.
I love a good peach. I love a good watermelon. I love good blueberries. I love good strawberries. And raspberries. If a fruit is in its prime, it’s hard for me to pick one above the other.
What I hate is mediocre fruit. Ugh.
Watermelon, check. Ripe peaches — Lawd have mercy, And one of my favorite albums of all time, Eat A Peach by the Almond Brothers.
Well that’s the problem with the question, are we talking perfectly ripe versions of fruit? Because I have had crappy versions of just about everything, and some really sublime ones as well.
Perfectly ripe I’d probably take a peach as much as anything else, but even a perfectly ripe Bartlett Pear is an awe inspiring experience.
One thing I give good old fashioned apples, if you have to settle for less than perfectly ripe, or need to store it for a while, few fruits stand up like an apple (Northern Spies or HoneyCrisp are favs…)
Fine, ripe red South-east Asian papaya.
Organic blueberries…by the pound !
Concord grapes. Take em as is, in grape juice, or in wine made therefrom. A few ounces/day* of the wine especially has good benefits for the blood and heart. Diluted Concord grape juice, taken consistently and as directed, over time reduces urges for sweet or starchy foods, helpful in a weight loss program.
* notice I didn’t say “glasses”. Pour a few ounces into a champagne flute, deceives the eye/mind into thinking there’s more there there.
Im trying to grow thee. They must be good because the critters get to them before I can.
thee <-> these
Shakespearean spellcheck
Hands down, the Nam Doc Mai Mango (aka Thai Mango).
First time I ate one of these I thought I had died and gone to heaven (and I’m an atheist!!) 🙂
Avocados. Alone or in a taco or burrito bowl. And as I recall, they contain a healthy/non lethal type of fat.
Fat isn’t bad for you.
Saturated and trans fats aren’t very good for you. Avocados contain mostly monounsaturated fats, and help reduce bad cholesterol levels.
One great thing about avocados is they don’t ripen until you pick them. They’ll sit on the tree all year, hard as a baseball, until picked. Critters pretty much leave them alone.
Mango.
Not the plump, reddish kind. The flatter yellow ones.
canteloupe
It’s a tie. Mangoes and just ripe cherries!
This is too ripe a question not to weigh in…
It’s hard to actually rank them, so I’d say the top 10 include:
Best fruit is the Cherimoya.
http://www.mnn.com/food/healthy-eating/photos/15-fruits-youve-probably-never-heard-of/cherimoya
Cherimoyas were one of the produce discoveries I made in southern CA, and man are they good!
Like a cross between a pineapple, a banana, and vanilla pudding!
The lime. It’s also the prettiest.
Wow. It’s amazing nobody else said this: Clementines.
Yes, where’s the love for the citrus? In the Mediterranean you can get what I suppose are the original tangerines, since that’s what they have in Tangiers. Really big ones, and the skin just pops off. We ate them by the kilo.
Very interesting interview with Mike Murphy at Bloomberg. Interesting timing also.
Nobody nominated passion fruit? I’m surprised. I like Santa Claus melons (piel de sapo), too.
I think it is whatever you can get really fresh and ripe.
I picked and ate a mutsu apple off the tree last weekend and that was a delicious fruit.
I can’t get good mango, passion fruit, figs, and a bunch of other delicious fruits where I live so their deliciousness is hypothetical.
I think this is the right answer
Asian Pears — good choice, but only if you’re going with Chojuro.
But my personal choice would be Rubinette apples.
Organic peaches from Palisade, Colorado. Close second: Rocky Ford cantaloupe.