Kiwano

One great thing about New Zealand is the variety and price of fresh fruit. Since arriving we've been eating kiwi berries (tiny kiwi fruit, fuzz-free, eaten like grapes), white peaches (very sweet) and mandarin oranges (I didn't realise they came without the tin).

The most unusual specimen yet though has to be the kiwano, also known as the African horned melon,the jelly melon, hedged gourd and English tomato. It's a native of the Kalahari region and "kiwano" is a trade name, used by New Zealand cultivators for export.



A little like a passionfruit or a pomegranate but with spikes, the kiwano is filled with seeds in jelly pouches. The fruit is eaten by spooning out the seeds, sucking off the jelly sac and then spitting out the seeds. This is a very time-consuming exercise and Wikihow recommends that it's done whilst watching television. We managed a whole episode of Life On Mars and still hadn't finished our respective halves. Luckily we found it sweet, like Fruit Gums, rather than bitter as many of these fruits are, but it was possibly more effort than it was worth!