Serious Eats - seriouseats.com

Glad to see you found these. :)

@gringuitica -- Thank you so much but I don't think it is a nance from the picture I saw when googling. The fruit was more green and came from a tree (having branches still attached) and it had a peel-covering like a lychee and the same type of pit.

But, you inspired me and I googled "lychee-like fruit Guyana" and came up with a site that called something similar a "Fat Poke" which googling that then led me to a Jamaican fruit page. Slogging through the links there (because "fat poke" wasn't actually on the page... ??) gave me a pic matched to the name "guinep" which did get me a wikipedia page for Mamoncillo that looks like it must be it. The fruit goes by dozens of names so it's no wonder I had a hard time refinding it.

The mamoncillo (Melicoccus bijugatus), also known as the mamón (although the word is considered obscene in some Spanish speaking countries), chenet, guaya, gnep, ginep, skinnip (in Jamaica, St. Kitts) genip, guinep, ginnip, kenèp (in Haiti), quenepa (in Puerto Rico and Dominican Republic), ackee (in Barbados), Spanish lime, or limoncillo, is a fruit-bearing tree in the soapberry family Sapindaceae, native or naturalised over a wide area of the American tropics including Central America, Mexico, Colombia, Venezuela, Dominican Republic, Guyana, Suriname and the Caribbean. It is a large tree growing up to 30 m high. The leaves are alternate, 8–5 cm long, pinnate with 4 or 6 opposite leaflets (no terminal leaflet), each leaflet 5–10 cm long.

It is grown and cultivated for its ovoid, green fruit, which grow in bunches. The fruit ripen during the summer. The fruit, similar to that of the related lychee, is classified as a drupe. A mamoncillo fruit has a tight and thin but rigid layer of skin, traditionally cracked by the teeth. Inside the skin is the tart, tangy, cream pulp of the fruit, which is sucked by putting the whole fruit inside the mouth (the seed takes most of the volume of what is inside the skin). Despite the light color of the fruit's flesh, the juice stains a dark brown color, and was often used by indigenous Arawak natives to dye cloth.

Fruit
Each mamoncillo fruit has a large seed inside, the same ovoid shape as the fruit itself. Mamoncillo seeds can be roasted and eaten just like sunflower seeds or chestnuts.

Thank you though for the ideas and I'm sorry you had such a bad experience with the nance. I've had similar times with bananas (samples of pancakes that turned out to have the fruit as an ingredient -- bleh). Is it possible you just had a bad batch? I did with my second mango and it was a couple years before I tried another.

Sorry too that I didn't see this until just now (but glad I did see it -- it was a nice surprise). =]

@annien -- hmmm... in my second paragraph, just before the line you took objection to earlier is the exact concern you repeat in your latest comment... so it's nice to know you agree with me after all... I guess.

You wouldn't happen to be my ex-MIL would you?

:]

I used to eat sourdough because I thought that's what grownups do. Then I decided being a grownup wasn't that important and I've been much happier ever since.

Oh good one Kerosena! The ex MIL used to say that the ex FIL hated driving in the dark but in reality it was her. She just needed to make it something outside of herself for some reason. I don't know if she felt it had more weight or if she wanted the blame to be on someone else. In dbcurrie's case I'd hope for the best as she says MIL is otherwise nice.

What I am worried about long distance is whether there isn't a medical issue going on that's causing the MIL's confusion issues. Most people don't intend to be difficult and it's something to take note of when it starts to happen when it didn't before. It could be medications that need adjusting or something else that needs attention.

This is an interesting saga though. I can hardly wait for the next installment of All My Dinners... or is it General Hospitable?

As the meal burns?

@joyyy -- Sorry I didn't see that there'd been more activity on this till now. I'm glad you were able to get a cold-brew going and enjoy it. I notice that producestories does one too. Sounds like she does hers a bit differently than I do. I grind as I would for a drip which might be too fine and probably slows me down in the filtering department but it works out and the flavor is good. I do about double what I would for a drip machine though. Half caf/half decaf so I can drink more because for me it's about the drink. Then I put the grinds in and top with cold tap water (because we have good tap but otherwise it might be worth it to do filtered or bottled) in a container with a screw top which holds maybe a bit more than the pot on my drip machine (which claims 12 of those crazy coffee maker sized cups). I do two of these each time and might do more if I had more containers. I do stir the grinds after putting a bit of water in to be sure they get wet all through then add the rest. The grounds float so an hour or so before I go to drain I knock them down so they'll settle on the bottom as this helps avert the need to drain as much but they won't do this in the beginning. After adding the water I put on a shelf and let sit at least overnight and have as much as 24 hours. Then I strain through a fine sieve into other containers and then through a coffee filter nestled in the sieve (as it rests nicely on the container rims) either back into the cleaned original containers or smaller ones with lids. Sometimes the coffee filter gets essentially plugged by the silt so I just wash it out and continue. The filtered coffee goes in the fridge and I take out what I want each day over the next week. The New York Times did a couple articles on it with two different recipes. Supposedly it can be diluted with water but I don't dilute it. It can be frozen too. What I like is it heats well and without the bitter than hot-brewed gets. It's so smooth and nearly chocolate-y. After the first time I didn't worry about getting another press and I put my drip machine away up on a top shelve.

One of the very best chocolates I've had ever was just a few weeks ago from Alter Eco Fair Trade. Their Dark Chocolate Velvet with a touch of organic milk from El Ceibo Cooperative in Bolivia made both my daughter and I stop in our tracks and sigh in pleasure. Part of it was the surprise at just how good it is. We've tried a lot of chocolate over the last couple years starting with our local store which does samples of fifty or so different kinds the weekend before Valentine's Day which inspired me to start writing about chocolate myself. This has been the best of them all from taste to texture. It's rich and bold yet smooth both in flavor and on the tongue.

I think waxy is one of the worst traits a chocolate can have. I was really disappointed to finally try a couple bars I never had before (and they were not cheap) only to feel like I was partaking of a chocolate flavored candle.

Ha! You just described my daughter dbcurrie! I can't tell you how many times she's said she just wishes she could take a pill and skip the whole have-to-eat-something ordeal. I think she likes food well enough but she hates the need to eat and the need to put it together and the rules around it like needing to think about it, bring it with you (say to school), to balance and only eat so much of this and so much of that and that it can make you overweight (which she was for a couple years in elementary school and experienced all the cruel even though it was just a bit plump -- finding clothes was really hard too).

But, we also have wildly different tastes. If taste is genetic she didn't get it from me. I'm not a bread eater but she loves it (and unfortunately seems to be gluten-intolerant which doesn't help her like the idea of food). I don't like cilantro and she does. I love salads and soups and she doesn't like any. I could go on. It's been a struggle for both of us. However, I predict ten years from now she'll be quite the foodie and the toast of her friends if not her town. I forced several months of focused cooking classes on her (since she wouldn't learn from me) and she's opened up her world immensely and her buds are all excited about her skills which makes her happy. She's cooked several things for me too so the payback is well worth it. What's funny is even though we'll both have a veggie burger for instance, we'll have two different flavors and then completely different toppings. But there are certainly times I wish I could just eat when I feel like it and not because I really need to because I'm miserable otherwise.

Have you ever cooked with your MIL? Have you seen her cook? She may have some issues around cooking that may even have been exacerbated by the FIL in all new ways. She may have never learned how to cook and has been winging it this whole time and is very insecure and/or clueless around food. I left home knowing essentially nothing. I could toast bread (and poptarts) but pretty much nothing else other than follow directions on box and can labels (ie: condensed soup and the helpers). The ex™ made it all much worse with his food issues and general nastiness. My cooking skills and food knowledge have come from PBS cooking shows and especially the internet mostly from the last several years. With those skills have come some confidence I used to only wish I had and felt keenly when I'd see it in others. There were lots of days I felt like an impostor and as if I'd be busted any day...

@producestories -- Thanks for that advice. That's exactly what I was hoping for. I think some people just do what they've always done because they don't know why they've always done it to begin with. The pork roast story woke me up from that. I really like to understand the why of everything.

I also meant to tell you about one of the best pieces of advice I read from some chef (who I can't even remember now). He said to gather up all your kitchen stuff and put it in a box. Then whatever you take out of the box to actually use goes back in your drawers or on your shelves. Whatever is left in the box after 30 days (or time you specify) goes away. That's how you end up with just what you really use in your kitchen.

I do like though that she showed us how to do it without a yogurt maker. I despise recipes that tell me to use whatever gadget I don't have. I'd much prefer to find out if I even like the recipe before I go for the gadget.

FFC -- I just thought you could combine your love of food and assembling things into one activity and perhaps make a bird feeder, or a cutting board.

:)

The vision of candy bars being dissected, and reassembled with PB, then frozen in some sort of Frankenbar will be with me for a while. Better candy than cats though. :]

PS. Try caramel to hold those bits together. Freezing though will create separation especially if they haven't been melted together. Harold McGee's On Food and Cooking: The science and lore of the Kitchen could be very helpful with your chemistry experiments. Remember, always wear safety glasses.

I hate "calories in, calories out" so much. Nothing is ever that simple but so many want to boil everything down to that simple. All that does is make it worse. People react differently. That's part of why there's so many different medications. It's not "med in, illness out" by any stretch. Those who make those statements haven't had to deal as others have. I saw a 15 year-old girl who's always been skinny lecturing on how easy it is to be that way and bemoaning that everyone should be able to do it. I told her to come back in 15 years and try again. I used to be her.

The one I can't seem to do is make everything on a weekend for the rest of the week or even the entire month. I'd love to be that organized and have it be that easy, but I'm usually the one missing at least one key ingredient to every possible recipe. By the time I get it the other ingredients have gone bad. I think that's a big part of why I became a foodie, so I could figure out how to improvise. I do love finding something in the freezer from a big meal I did portion out.

Challenging myself to "Eat Local" though has opened up my diet immensely. I'd been limited by what the supermarket was willing to let me have. Now I shop farmers markets and stands. I've been amazed at the bounty I never even knew existed let alone nearly at my fingertips. However, I'm not militant about it. I do allow spices and other treats but I am much more conscientious about where they are sourced from so there is the least suffering from my choices as there can be (Fair Trade/Organic helps). And, eating seasonally has become delightful and part of the passage through life.

@producestories -- Hee, talk about not local, I think you've convinced me to get a yogurt maker. I want to make coconut milk yogurt. I've been reading about all the health benefits of pro-biotics and I'm floored. Have any suggestions?

@caviarandcodfish -- Some places, especially co-ops, allow buying spices in bulk so you can buy only what you need rather than a set sized bottle. This saves a lot of money too even though it seems expensive per unit (spices are light and used sparingly). Also, old spices can be composted or even used to control things such as keeping cats out of parts of the garden you wished they'd stay out of...

@dbcurrie -- UGH! Eggshells pieces are the very worst. I can still remember an egg mcmuffin I had that had one and a Danish donut my sis-in-law made me (while she was very toasted) that seemed to have an entire eggshell in it. Both happened years ago but that's how bad it is to get them in the food. I'll crack eggs into a separate bowl to make sure they are shell-free before adding to anything or cooking. But, I do save my empty eggshells, cleaned and crushed to give to the chickens down the road. They love them and it gives them the calcium they need to make new shells.

I'm eager to hear how things worked out with your in-laws. I've been pondering over that for days and wondered if it's possible that they do love your food but don't understand it's been seasoned because they don't understand seasonings themselves? Given the topic of this post, I'm not being too OT here. :)