bite, suck, spit

Chin-ups

I just had my morning coffee when Joel, a Grenadian skipper, passed by to say hello. (He is married to a Swiss, but she lives back in Switzerland - he told me this was a long story he would tell us some day. I guess, that will be an interesting one...) While we were chatting he nibbled on a fruit I haven't seen - or I didn't take notice of - before:

He offered me some to taste. The round green fruits connected to a twig are slightly bigger than grapes or cherries and the skin is quite firm.

"You have to bite it open, suck the pulp and spit out the seed", Joel told me. Hesitant I did as I was told and heard a popping sound once I bit into the fruits skin. It's almost like to split open a boiled egg with the only difference that the content has a jelly-like texture - like lychee.

Then you turn the fruit around in your mouth like a candy and suck the juicy flesh off the seed. I like the taste, it's sweet and sour best to compare with the flavor of passionfruit mixed with grape.

And once you're finished extracting all the pulp you spit out (or more ladylike: dispose of) the seed.
I then asked what they're called? In Grenada they call them chin-up, but on other islands they go by different names like ginnip, skin-up or chinette.

It's a fun fruit, very cheap and almost addictive - I'm glad I was introduced to it!

With love from paradise
Rahel