Caribbean hot peppers also known as Scotch Bonnet (because of their shape) is found mainly in the Caribbean Islands but widely used in West African dishes. The peppers are scaled at 445,000 Scoville units and a cousin of habanero peppers. Its name was derived from the city of Cuba called La Habana, or Havana in…
Kamansi also known as breadnut (bot. name- Artocarpus camansi – blanco) is a relative of breadfruit and jack fruit. The breadfruit has more pulp and small seeds while the kamansi has bigger seeds and less pulp and just like the jack fruit, the seeds are edible and can be boiled or roasted and a…
We have been using squash flowers for as long as I can remember in cooking. But the method is just simple. Removing the anthers first and then mixing it with other vegetables seasoned with fish sauce is the norm. But I found out that the popularity of using the flowers in the modern culinary…
Upo or Long gourd (Lagenaria Siceraria) belongs to the family of cucurbits. The gourd had been used primarily as a water container. There are different shapes and sizes to choose from. Cucuzzi is an Italian long gourd that also belongs to the same family. Some are long and gnarly that they call it snake gourd. …
We call the jackfruit “langka” in the Philippines. I consider it as the biggest fruit ever. When I was young, we nicknamed it “hog” because sometimes it grows as big as a pig. I remember my grandma’s jackfruit tree in the farm and the fruit almost touches the ground. I also remember eating the fruits…
Atemoya is a hybrid of two types of annona fruits which are sugar apple and the cherimoya. The sugar apple is what we refer to in the Philippines as “atis” the word I believe came from the old Mexican word “Ate” which refers to sugar apple. The crossing of these two types of Annona fruits…