Agbalumo or African Star Apple can be stunningly sour or unbelievably sweet!

Not only is this one of the most popular fruits in Nigeria and West Africa, its highly complicated layered taste is as edgy as is its unforgettable color.

1. Fruit is indigenous to Africa.

2. Contains more ascorbic acid than guava and oranges.

3. Each fruit contains 4-6 seeds.

4. Researchers claim the fruit can help to lower blood sugar and cholesterol.

5. The skin has been used for medicinal value to cure cough, yellow fever, malaria and anemia.

When you get past the look, the taste, you get these unusually large and distinct seeds.

Agbalumo seeds aren't just tossed aside or into the garbage like we do with most fruits - Oh no! they BECOME sport.

Agbalumo seeds are popularly called Station. Not sure of the origin of its name but I can tell you this...

 

Agbalumo seeds a.k.a Station provides hours of play for children who strategically advance their station as game-pieces against an opponents station - Winner is determined by the owner of the quickest station to reach a designated chalk-marked spot and winner takes all pieces.

As a kid, I remember logging around tens of stations from my wins and licking my wounds after losing majority of them in subsequent matches. Hmmm...those were awesome days.

Back to the taste, when a sour-tasting Agbalumo hits you, it really Truly HITS ya! so trust me, you'd want to know up front that you're getting a sweet agbalumo. Here's how you tell the difference...

Look closely at these two. See the pretty one on the right? you're likely to go for that one and yes, the clearer skin agbalumo would be the wrong choice.

Sweet Tasting agbalumo can be identified by:

1. Darker Skin

2. More spots and imperfections

3. Those grown in Nigeria are great however, those grown in neighboring country of Republic of Benin are more likely to be sweet.

4. Its softer which is indicative of how ripe it is.

Let's go inside the agbalumo...

Its Fleshy, Its Juicy and its Cheesy.

And you know what's really cool? after sucking off all of the fleshy parts to extract only the seed, when you chew agbalumo skin for a long while, it begins to form a texture in your mouth that's similar to chewing a bubble gum.

Source : www.spicebaby.com