Fruit: Ciku

My parents just plant a Ciku tree not long ago and the effort starts to bear fruits. Ciku is not easily available in the market nowadays and I haven’t taste this fruit since I was a little kid. There are several names for Ciku (this is the name Malaysian used to) such as Sapodilla and Manilkara.

The fruits are round and oval, about 5-10cm long. The tree is not tall at all. About 2-3m in height. Mature fruits can be determined by feeling the surface of the fruit itself, which should be soft. The ripen fruit have a dull pale to lusty brown thin skin. When ripe, the flesh is yellowish to pinkish brown, soft, sweet and delicious. Unripe fruits are hard and unpleasantly astringent.

At a glance, the fruit might look like Kiwi fruit but Ciku is about 2 times the size of the kiwi fruit

Each fruit has 2-3 seeds about 1.5-2cm which are hard, black, shiny and somewhat flattened. The fruit taste really nice. It's sweet ans simply divine. How you eat it? Well, the easiest way for me is to cut it into half as shown and scoop the content with a spoon. Just the same way as eating a kiwi fruit.