Sensory Evaluation

Over the next few months I'm going to try as many new foods as I can and record them in this blog. I decided to start off with something I was pretty sure I would enjoy, so I chose a fruit. Sweet pitaya, to be exact, or as it is better known (at least by me), Dragon fruit. I had never heard the name sweet pitaya before, but learned a decent amount about the fruit on the internet before eating it.

 

I also didn't realize how many different varieties there were. I've only ever seen the red-skinned, white-fleshed kind, Hylocereus undatus, which is the most common type. But the two I purchased at Sobey's (for a whopping $3.50 each) were the red-fleshed type, Hylocereus costaricensis. It's pretty amazing that we live in a time where we can get any type of fruit from any part of the planet regardless of what season it is just by driving 5 minutes to the store. At the same time its a slightly sobering thought if you consider how much fossil fuel gets burned during shipping. More energy wasted than the caloric content of the food can even provide. Just another reason to buy local!

 

Honestly, I don't think it was worth the price. Sure it looked nice, with its red leathery skin and some leaves sort of like flower petals, and when I cut it in half it was quite juicy too, but my excitement was short lived. It did taste good, it just didn't really taste like much of anything. I ate a couple pieces and it might be a stretch, but I would have to say it reminded me of a cross between a kiwi (because of the seeds and a slight tartness in the beginning), and a watermelon (because of the watery-sweetness). I also thought I was picking up a slight aftertaste of some sort of red berry. The seeds were kind of off-putting since they were much larger than kiwi seeds so I decided to blend it up with some apple cider and strain the seeds. Bad idea. For some reason it became this weird goopy substance that reminded me of egg whites and I couldn't even get it to go through the strainer. I decided to just drink it as it was, but the texture made me gag so I poured it out. I will have to research a recipe containing Dragon fruit to use up the second one I bought. I don't see myself buying them again however.