Curated playlist
Fruits originating in Asia
- MangoIn 1974, Filipino horticulturist Ramon Barba made mango trees flower on demand.
- ApricotIn Egypt, "bukra filmishmish" means "tomorrow in apricot season." It answers a rash promise.
- Orange (fruit)Every sweet orange descends from one cross between a mandarin and a pomelo. No sweet orange grows wild anywhere.
- AppleAn apple seed almost never grows into the apple you planted. Growers keep a good apple by cloning it.
- BananaAlmost every banana eaten in the Western world is a single seedless clone. That sameness is its greatest weakness.
- CoconutEvery coconut on a remote Pacific island arrived because a person brought it. Ocean currents alone could not do it.
- Mandarin orangeThe sweet mandarin orange descends from a bitter wild fruit. The pomelo gave most mandarins their sweetness.
- EggplantEggplant, known to science as Solanum melongena, carries a different name depending on who is talking. North Americans, Australians and Filipinos say eggplant. The British, Irish and New Zealanders say aubergine. Across India, Bangladesh,…
- JackfruitThe jackfruit, Artocarpus heterophyllus, can weigh as much as 55 kilograms, which makes it the largest fruit that grows on a tree. A mature tree produces around 200 of them each year, and older trees can bear up to 500. This giant belongs…
- FigThe fig, the fruit of a tree known to botanists as Ficus carica, may have been the first plant that people ever grew on purpose. The evidence is nine small figs found at Gilgal I, an early Neolithic village in the Jordan Valley, 13 km…
- CitronAsk for a citron in a French market and you will be handed a lemon. The French word for the fruit that English speakers call a citron is cédrat, and the two languages have been confusing each other for centuries. The true citron, known to…