Fruit Category

While sweet cherries are best for eating out of hand, knowing cooks turn to sour cherries for pie fillings, sauces, soups, and jams. Popular varieties include the Montmorency, Morello, and Early Richmond. Sour cherries don't transport well, so they're difficult to find fresh. Canned sour cherries, though, are almost as good. If you want, boost their flavor a bit by adding one tablespoon of Kirschwasser per cup.

Look for these in Middle Eastern markets.

This large, dark green fruit is covered with soft prickles. The pulp has a slightly acidic, tropical flavor. Don't eat the seeds or peel.

This is a good apple for eating out of hand.

After it's cooked, you can dig a fork into the flesh of a spaghetti squash and pull out long yellow strands that resemble spaghetti. Though they taste like squash, the "noodles" can serve as a low-calorie substitute for pasta.

These are delicious melons, but it's hard to know when they're fully ripe. Unlike most other melons, a ripe Spanish melon will have a green rind and be firm at the blossom end.

This is a cross between the McIntosh and Pippin apples. It's a good all-purpose apple.

These are similar to star fruit, only with purple skins.

Star fruit have a clean, crisp texture, and they make terrific star-shaped garnishes when sliced. They're also easy to use, since they don't need to be peeled or seeded, and they're slow to discolor. Some varieties are sweet, some are sour. Try to avoid ones that have brown spots or streaks.

The family of stone fruits includes cherries, plums, apricots, nectarines, and peaches. They all arrive in the summer, though you can sometimes find pricey imports during the off-season. Stone fruits don't become sweeter after they're picked, but growers often harvest them while they're still a bit underripe so that they won't bruise during transit. At the market, select specimens that have the color, if not the softness, of fully ripened fruit, then take them home and let them soften at room temperature for a few days.

Strawberries aren't as fragile as other berries, so they don't need the special handling that makes most berries so expensive. The best time to buy them is in the spring, but you can find them throughout the year, though the price might be higher and the quality lower. Select berries that have fully ripened to a dark red.

Sukkary dates are golden yellow, dry, soft and sweet. They are commonly grown in Saudi Arabia.

Unlike winter squash, summer squash can be eaten rind, seeds, and all. The different varieties vary in size, shape, and color, but they can be used interchangeably in recipes. Select summer squash that are small and firm.

Dried tomatoes have a richer, more concentrated flavor than ordinary tomatoes. They're great for snacking, or tossing in salads or sauces or on pizzas. Dried tomatoes usually come either dry or packed in oil. If they're hard and dry, steep them in boiling water for about five minutes before using them.

Like the Pink Lady apple, this is a a cross between a Golden Delicious and a Lady Williams. It's very good for eating out of hand.

These appear in the summer, with the popular and exquisite Bing cherries arriving in June and July. Other varieties have the virtue of arriving before or after the Bings, but they're often not nearly as tasty. Select cherries that are large, deeply colored, and firm.

Sweet dumpling squash are fairly small, so you can cut them in half, bake them, and serve each half as an individual portion. The flesh is sweeter and drier than that of other winter squash, and the peel is soft enough to be eaten.

These are similar to gooseberries, but they have a red blush and are much sweeter.

This sweet tropical fruit looks a bit like a small cherimoya. It's great for eating of hand or for making shakes. It's available in the fall, but it's hard to find outside of Florida.

This fruit is notable more for its ravishing beauty than its flavor. It's about the size of a oblong plum, with a smooth peel that can be purple, red, orange, or yellow, with the yellow variety tending to be a bit sweeter. Slicing it in half reveals black or orange flesh (the darker the peel, the darker the flesh) surrounding a nest of seeds. It's more acidic than sweet, and tastes a bit like a tomato. It's best if it's peeled and cooked before eating.

The pulp from the tamarind pod is used as a souring agent in Latin America, India, the Middle East, Africa, and Asia. To extract the pulp, shell the pods, put them in a saucepan, then add enough water to completely cover the pulp. Simmer for about half an hour, then strain out and discard the seeds. It's a nuisance to do this, so many cooks simply buy the extracted pulp in bricks, jars, cans, powders, or bottles. There's also a sweet tamarind, which looks like the sour variety and is used primarily to make drinks.

There are several different varieties of tangelos, each a cross between a tangerine and another citrus fruit. The Mineola, a tangerine-grapefruit cross, is especially popular. Look for them in markets from late fall through winter.

Tapereba is the yellow fruit of the mombin tree. The fruit is eaten fresh or made into juice.

This Mexican variety looks like a pale zucchini, but it's a tad sweeter.

Like cherry tomatoes, these are great in salads and on crudité platters.

These look a bit like large dried cranberries. They're also sold fresh. They are very hot.

These are extremely hot.

These golf-ball sized eggplants are more bitter than American eggplants. They come in different colors, but they're usually green with yellow or white striations. They're often used in hot chile or curry dishes. Remove the bitter seeds before using.

This is a sweet green table grape. It is also commonly used for making raisins.

These are seeds from the toddy or jaggery palm. Sap from the same tree is used to make jaggery (a kind of sugar), wine, and vinegar. You have to cook them before you can eat them. People in Indian and Southeast Asia roast and split the seeds, then suck out the yellow gelatinous pulp inside. It's available frozen or canned in Indian and Southeast Asian markets. Be careful if you pick your own: the red fruit surrounding the seeds contains oxalic acid, which can burn your skin and do even more damage if eaten.

To make your own: See the Tomato Juice Recipe posted on Recipesource.com.

This squash has a gorgeous rind, but ho-hum flavor. It makes a good centerpiece, or you can hollow it out and use it as a spectacular soup tureen.

These are long, green, and hot chili peppers. Turks like to grill them and serve them with meat. Don't confuse this fresh pepper with the spice called Turkish pepper.

This grapefruit-mandarin cross looks like a grapefruit in an ill-fitting suit. It's sweet and juicy, though, and simple to eat since the peel comes off easily and the fruit pulls apart into tidy segments that are virtually seedless. Americans pronounce the name "ugly," but in Jamaica, where it's grown, it's pronounced "HOO-glee." Some marketers have tried calling it "Uniq fruit®," but the name hasn't caught on much. Ugli fruit are available from December through April. Most specimens are much uglier than the one pictured here, but don't let that deter you. Select fruits that are heavy for their size, and that give a little when you press them.

This is a dried ground chili pepper used in Turkey on meat dishes. It is medium spicy and has a smoky flavor.

To make your own: See the Mitch's V-6 Vegetable Juice Cocktail Recipe posted on Fabulousfoods.com.

For best flavor, tomatoes should stay on the vine until they're fully ripened. This is a tall order for growers, who prefer to pick tomatoes while they're still green and sturdy, and then gas them with ethylene until they turn red. Vine tomatoes, on the other hand, are picked after they begin to "break" or turn red, which allows them to develop fuller flavor. Expect to pay more for the special handling required to bring these to market.

There are about 50 varieties of watermelon on the market. They all taste about the same, but they vary in size, flesh color, and in whether they are seeded or seedless. Picnic melons are largest, while icebox melons are round and compact. Many stores also carry yellow-fleshed, white-fleshed, and seedless melons. The rind should be heavy for its size, and free of bruises, soft spots, or cuts. To check for ripeness, look at the pale side of the melon (where it rested while it was growing)--it should be yellow, not white. If your market sells halved watermelons, inspect the flesh--it should be firm, brightly colored, and free of white streaks. Seeded watermelons should have dark brown or black seeds. To store, wrap watermelon slices loosely in plastic and refrigerate for up to two days. Uncut watermelon can be stored at room temperature (preferably in a cool spot) for up to two weeks.

This eggplant comes in different shapes and sizes and, except for the exterior color, is interchangeable with their purple cousins, the American eggplant and the Italian eggplant.

This tropical fruit has sweet, creamy pulp that's wonderful in fruit salads or shakes. They arrive in the summer. Since they bruise easily when ripe, they're usually sold while they're still hard. Take them home and let them ripen on the counter for a few days until they yield to a gentle squeeze. Remove the peel and seeds before serving.