Autumn in New Zealand heralds the arrival of a green egg-sized fruit that falls from the trees in such abundance that it is often given to neighbors and colleagues by the bucket or even the wheelbarrow load. Only in cases of extreme desperation do people buy anything.
The fresh fruit, whose flesh is tart, jelly-like and cream-colored, is used in muffins, cakes, jams and smoothies, and it begins to appear on high-end menus in March – the start of autumn in the Southern Hemisphere. Off-season, it can be found in food and drinks as varied as juices and wine, yogurt and kombucha, and chocolate and popcorn.
This ubiquitous fruit is the feijoa (pronounced fee-jo-ah). Known in the United States as pineapple guava, it was first brought to New Zealand from South America via France and California in the early 1900s.
Its tangy flavor is hard to describe, even for die-hard fans. But what is easy to identify is that like the kiwi fruit, which originated in China, and the kiwi, a native bird, the feijoa has become for many here a major symbol of New Zealand, or Aotearoa, as the country is known in Native Maori language.
“Even though it’s not from Aotearoa, it’s definitely something I associate with Aotearoa modern strategy, the modern food pantry,” says Monique Fiso, a chef of Maori and Samoan descent who has worked in top restaurants in New York for more than five years. Now back in New Zealand, he is a pioneer of modern Polynesian cuisine and often serves feijoas to his customers.
“It’s definitely one of my favorite fruits to work with, especially when we’re making sorbets, because it’s so refreshing,” she says. “Feijoas have a lot of versatility — you can bake with them, you can make ice cream with them, you can make jam with them. And they have a place that’s delicious, too.”
Not all New Zealanders love feijoas, he warns. Sometimes customers will specify “only no feijoa” when they make a reservation. It was a feeling he couldn’t understand. “I’m going a little crazy,” he said. “Me, what’s your problem? They are the best fruit ever!”
For fans, nothing beats the fall experience of eating a whole bucket of fresh fall fruit.
“You can cut it in half and eat it with a spoon, or you can just bite it with your teeth and suck out the contents,” said David Farrier, a New Zealand filmmaker and journalist who lives in Los Angeles. somewhat concerned.
He often tried to explain feijoas to mysterious Americans.
“I’d say it’s about the size of an egg — just think of a green chicken egg with a little hat on top,” he said. “The taste? Actually, it tastes like feijoa. And if you don’t have feijoa yet, you’re missing out.”
People have compared feijoas to guava (a distant relative) and to a mixture of pineapple and strawberry. Long before the craft-beer revolution, a 1912 US newspaper article declared: “He who drinks beer, thinks beer. But a person who eats guava pineapple thinks of pineapple, raspberry and banana at the same time.”
However, in New Zealand, one can drink beer and think feijoas. Last year, a feijoa-flavored sour ale, 8 Wired’s Wild Feijoa 2022, beat out more than 800 other brews to win the highest prize at the national beer awards. Its brewer, Soren Eriksen, is originally from Denmark, but has lived in New Zealand for nearly two decades. He quickly went to the feijoas.
“I like them skin and everything,” he says, adding that the tangy skin of the feijoa gives his award-winning Belgian-style lambic beer its special flavor. “I wanted to do something traditional, but also uniquely Kiwi.”
Feijoas originate from Uruguay, the southern highlands of Brazil and a corner of northern Argentina. But they thrive in most of New Zealand, are easy to grow with little care and face few pests, and quickly find their way into local diets.
Rohan Bicknell, an Australian importer and exporter of fruits and vegetables, has a front-row seat to feijoa mania. He accidentally discovered feijoas in 2013, when a lack of passion fruit in his home country forced him to order some from New Zealand. Suppliers also threw in several hundred kilos of feijoas. Mr. thought Bicknell said they were delicious, and they sold out within a week, bought by homesick New Zealand expatriates.
“They’re like kids,” he said. “Sometimes you have to listen to their childhood stories for almost an hour. But it puts a smile on your face, even if you hear it 200 times a week.
Mr. Bicknell now has 32 feijoa trees growing in his Brisbane backyard, a 1,000-tree feijoa orchard in the southern Queensland highlands, and an online store called Feijoa Addiction that mostly caters to the many New Zealanders living in Australia.
People in some other countries have the same level of feeling for a fruit, he said. “Malaysians and durians and Kiwis and feijoas are probably at the same strength of addiction,” he said. “Maybe Indians and mangoes.” Australians love the mulberry, “but the connection is not as strong as between a feijoa and someone from New Zealand.”
Feijoas also bring a special kinship, says Charlotte Muru-Lanning, a writer from Auckland. Because they didn’t store well, and there were so many of them, at a certain point in time people started giving them away. Last year, he laid them out in a box on the sidewalk in front of his house with a small sign that said “free feijoas.”
That aspect of feijoas makes them a vessel for the Maori concept of pawawhanaungatanga — building and strengthening relationships with those around you, Ms. Muru-Lanning, which is Maori. If you don’t have a feijoa tree, this is the perfect excuse to meet a neighbor who does. If you have a lot, you can show your concern for others by sharing fruit.
“I feel like something has gone really wrong if I live in this country and have to buy feijoas,” he said.
