You may never have heard of feijoa, but it’s so popular in Colombia that annual festivals are held in its honor. A fruit with a festival is one we should get to know better.
The common name of this fruit is a bit of a tongue twister (pronounce it FAY-JOE-AH). However, its scientific name is even harder (acca sellowiana). Around the world, it’s known as Brazilian guava, guayabo del país, or pineapple guava.
Feijoa was first collected in the wild in southern Brazil and was named after a Brazilian botanist. In Colombia, it’s cultivated in Boyacá, Cundinamarca, Santander and Valle del Cauca.
How to buy feijoa
About the size of an egg, with a shriveled green exterior, the feijoa has an odd appearance. It can be hard to know what to do with a feijoa. How do you know which ones to purchase, how to cut them, and how to eat them?
In Colombia you can find feijoas at any supermarket, local fruver or at a large farmers market. A kilogram of feijoa may cost about 4,000 pesos (around US$1.25/€1.10 ).
The fruit can stay green until it is way too ripe, so you’ll need to squeeze them a bit to determine ripeness. Choose fruits that are a bit soft to the touch, free of blemishes, and have an intense yet sweet aroma.
When you cut a feijoa open, you’ll see that the inside has an off-white color with seeds in a star pattern. The fruit can still be consumed when the inside has turned slightly brown, but an overly ripe feijoa will have a mushy, opaque look inside.
You can refrigerate feijoa, but if you leave the ripe fruit out on your counter, try to eat it within 3 days.
How to eat feijoa
Once you have a feijoa in your kitchen, you may be wondering what to do with it. Feijoa is eaten as fresh fruit or used to make candy, cakes, jelly, ice cream, pastries, and cookies.
If you’d prefer your feijoa in liquid form, make juice by cutting the fruit into pieces and blending it with water or milk, the sweetener of your choice, and ice.
If you use the skin, the juice will take on the green tint of the tart skin. If you’d rather not use the skin, cut the fruit in half and scoop out the pulp with a spoon.
Stewed feijoa fruit is tasty with vanilla ice cream. You can also make feijoa jam.
You can add feijoa to your favorite cocktail. Sabajón, a type of Colombian eggnog, is prepared with either rum or aguardiente (an anise-flavored liqueur made from sugar cane) and can be made with feijoa.
And don’t forget about the flowers! They’re graceful, exotic and intensely aromatic with a sweet taste. If you happen to discover some flowers, don’t hesitate to pop them on a salad as a sweet and edible decoration.
Feijoa recipe
Bocadillo de feijoa
Ingredients
2 pounds feijoa, cut up
800 gr of sugar
Juice of 1 lemon or lime
1 cup of water
Instructions
1. Stew the fruit in a small amount of water for 15 minutes
2. Let it cool down and peel the skin off
3. Blend the fruit in a blender and strain
4. Add the sugar and mix well until it dissolves completely, then add lemon or lime juice
5. In a pot with a thick bottom, cook the mixture with the 1 cup of water over low to medium heat for 30 minutes, stirring frequently, until the mixture thickens
6. Pour in a mold and refrigerate for 8 hours
7. Remove from mold and cut into desired shape
Learn more about Colombian fruits
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- Where is Colombian coffee grown around the country?
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