Mountain apples are common in the South Pacific and Southeast Asia. I didn’t know it, but there are several different fruits called mountain apple. We encountered the variety shown above at the ‘Imiloa lunch buffet, where they were served cold with a pinkish brown spice as a dessert. It is delicately flavored, crisp, and juicy, but not very sweet. Fans of mountain apples, scientific fans, that is, know this variety as syzygium samarangense, Note the exaggerated pear shape, which explains why it also sometimes called bellfruit. They are a beautiful bright red.

Dragon fruit is from a cactus that grows in tropical Central America, Hawaii, and Southeast Asia. It must be harvest time in October, because I recently encountered the fruit in a the Farmer’s Market in Kailua Kona on the Big Island of Hawaii.

We encountered this fruit, or maybe it is a vegetable, in the Farmer’s Market in Kailua-Kona on the Big Island of Hawai’i. Anyone know what it is?